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LIGHT AND DARK 



REBELLION, -stiv ^ 



Forsan et hsec olim meminisse juvabit. — ViR. 



THE GIFT OF 
COIDME;^ college 



PHILADELPHIA: -N^* Y. 

GEORGE W. CHILDS, 628 & 630 CHESTNUT ST. 

1863. 



/^ . 1 



na,/ 







L-V-Z. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 

GEORGE W. CHILDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern 

District of Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA. 
PRINTED BY DEACON & PETERSON. 

In Sischange 
Ui:iiv.ofVugima. 



"In giving the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request 
of me, I cannot overlook the fact that the meeting speak as 'Democrats.' 
Nor can I, with full respect for their known intelligence and the fairly 
presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions, be per- 
mitted to suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than 
that they preferred to designate themselves 'Democrats' rather than 
* American citizens.' In this time of national peril I would have pre- 
ferred to meet you upon a level one step higher than any party platform ; 
because I am sure that from such more elevated position we could do 
better battle for the country we all love than we possibly can from those 
lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the past, and 
selfish hopes of the future, we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity 
and strength in finding fault with and aiming blows at each other." — 
Extract from President Lincoln's letter to Hon. ErASTUS Corning and 
others, June 12, 1S63. 



/ . O ^ Q 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

L_What Kind of a War this is 7 

II.— The Real Heroes of the War— The Rank and File in 

the Hospital 11 

III.— The Work of the Pen in this War 14 

IV. — Heroism in the Hospital 16 

V. — Mount Vernon in Other Days 24 

VI. — Cloaked Foes — Croakers, and all other Secessionists.... 29 

VII. — Army Chaplains and Old Mortality 35 

VIII. — L'Esprit de Corps — Eloquence in the Army 44 

IX. — Statesmen and Events 50 

X. — A Hero Soldier neither in the Rank nor File.. 55 

XI. — Our Foreign Relations, — such as they are, — such us 

tlley may be 64 

XII. — The Issue as the South made it : — Independence or 

Subjugation 82 

XIII.— The Mission of the Masonic Fraternity in tliis War 85 

XIV.— The Real Dignity of Citizenship— Ro1)ert J. Walker ■ 88 

XV. — The United States Sanitary Commission — How it 
started, what it intended to do, and how it has been 

done 94 

XVL— The Duty of the Republic to its Fallen Heroes 109 

XVIL— How to end the War by the Arts of Peace— Eli Thayer's 

Plan 112 

XVIII.— The Night of the Battle of Ball's Bluflf 127 

XIX. — Soldiers' Relief Associations 135 

XX.— The Dark in the White House 142 

XXI. — The Life of an Army Paymaster for a Day 145 

1* 5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAQE 

XXII. — The Immolation and Redemption of the African Race.. 160 

XXIII. — Office-Holders as they are, and how they should be 169 

XXIV. — Scenes and Sayings in the Hospital 172 

XXV.— The Doom of the Rebellion 178 

XXVI. — Kind Words to Africano-Americans 193 

XXVII.— African Troops— The Future Armies of the Republic... 198 

XXVIII.— The Convalescent Camp of the Fourth Ohio 208 

XXIX. — The Proclamation of Emancipation 214 

XXX. — Contempt for Labor the Characteristic only of Slave- 
holders 218 

XXXI.— In the Valley of the Shenandoah 221 

XXXIL— A Well-Known New York Boy 225 ' 

XXXIIL— Border-State Men and Border-State Loyalty 227 

XXXIV.— The Commissariat of the Army 233 

XXXV. — A Summer Morning's Ride to the Country-Seat of the 

Old Patriot and Poet, Joel Barlow.— A Hospital 239 

XXXVI.— The Law of Empire in the Western Hemisphere 246 

XXXVII.— The Quakers on the War-Path 258 

XXXVIII. — The Nation taxes itself to redeem its Pledges and 

sustain its Honor 260 

XXXIX. — What our Republic needs now 264 

XL. — Mr. Lincoln : — what Kind of a Man — what Kind of a 

President— he is 273 

XLI. — Our New States. — The Founding of Wilderness Com- 
monwealths. — They must be protected. — How 276 

XLII. — The Impossibility of the Final Division or Partition of 

the American Union 281 

XLIII. — The Great Republic still moves on in the Consciousness 

of its own Security 294 



THE 



Jiglt aii'ti fark uf tlje Itklliflii. 



What Kind of a War This is. 

The first shot into Fort Sumter was the signal-gun of the 
greatest and the strangest war ever waged on earth. 

That shot was thrown to the feet of Liberty in defiance. 
It was intended to inaugurate a life-or-death-struggle between 
Slavery and Freedom. It did its work; and the cannon 
which threw it will live longer in history than the torch of 
the wretch who burned the Ephesian Temple. 

Again, and on a higher stage, the struggle was to come, to 
test the vital forces of Civilization and Barbarism, — of Pro- 
gress and Iletrogressiou, — of Order and Anarchy, — of Life 
or Death, for men and communities, for society and govern- 
ments. Above all was it a final grapple between the Past 
whose dead had buried its own dead, and the Future which 
was to give life to all. 

Something like this had been witnessed during the many 
thousand years of deadly strife the human race had been 
going through, in approaching Liberty as the road to God, — 
the shrine where all nations are yet to worship. 

The records of human defeats, suiferings, and triumphs, 
show little more than the heroism of the true and the good 
in resisting the false and the bad. 



8 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

It seems to be the will of Heaven tliat nations must work 
out their own salvation as nations. The final Court of Ap- 
peals, to which even the uneducated conscience points its in- 
dexing finger, will judge the individual, not the community. 

When nations pass away, they never return. We survey 
their wrecks stranded on the shore of time, merely to read 
some commentaries on their history, — their rise and deve- 
lopment, their decline and fall. But civilization, which 
means progression towards the just, the great, the safe and 
sublime, was the law Grod instituted for society. 

Great thoughts never die. They go among the eternal 
archives of human hope and security, to which the treasures 
of successive ages are committed. 

In the literature and arts of the ancients, we have most of 
the finest thoughts of the finest minds, — the chief records 
of the noblest deeds of the noblest men. And thus the torch 
of light is safely transmitted from age to age. 

All its effulgence was shed over us from the hour our 
country was born. We have inherited all the earth could 
give us, with the fairest and broadest field for its use and de- 
-velopment. The Creator had looked on us benignantly, as 
our fathers sailed for a new home beyond the sea, to find a 
resting-place for earth's children. 

Thus high did Heaven seem to fix its purpose on North 
America, — thus high did our founders comprehend the fact. 

Our history had been more wonderful than the dreams of 
Oriental fancy. All the images of wealth, prosperity, and 
power that had ever thrilled the brain-pulses of the most 
ideal disciple of Plato, vanished into thin air before the form 
of Young American Liberty, rising from this fresh continent, 
proclaiming to the race freedom, order, and happiness for all. 
No such treasure had before been committed to men. When 
he spread this festival, he asked all nations to come. Hardly 
a day went by, but some winged messenger came from the 
Old World, freighted with hearts that were weary, seeking a 



OF THE REBELLION. 9 

new roof-tree^ — with muscles that were over-strained by the 
unpaid toil of Europe ; but all ready to carry out the dreams 
of personal, manly, ennobling social life. 

The best minds and the warmest hearts on the other side 
of the water understood America. They knew our history, 
and they burned with enthusiasm to mix their fortunes up 
with our earlier settlers. 

They did ; and even this tide of national disaster has 
hardly arrested their coming. They are arriving still, and 
they will yet find fertile soil and free institutions for their 
free possession, till at last all Europe and Asia will together 
rejoice in the triumph of the thoughts and desires of all the 
brave and humane men who constructed our system of civic 
life. 

And thus we went on till 1860, pressing our free course 
to wealth without limit, to prosperity beyond our own com- 
prehension, and to happiness so complete that we forgot the 
source of it all, — when we made the dreadful discovery, for 
the first time, that our career was arrested, for a while, if not 
forever. We were not going too fast ; we were only on the 
wrong road. We were rushing madly from the sphere where 
our Maker had placed us, and he laid his great hand on his 
own work, when suddenly thirty millions of people, under one 
government, stood paralyzed on the brink of ruin. 

We had allowed Slavery to become the law of the land. 
We had dethroned the Liberty we had boasted of, and en- 
throned the Dagon of Human Servitude in its place. We 
had prostituted to the basest purpose the great gift bestowed 
on us so lavishly ] and in the merciless greed for gain, when 
we already had a thousand times more than we could use, we 
ran riot into every form of luxury and licentiousness which 
could tempt the appetite, exalt the pride, or inflame the am- 
bition of our people. 

Religion, with all its sublime traditions, and all its holy beck- 
onings to the better life we could lead, had lost much of its 



10 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

magic power over tlie great masseS; — over tlie young and the 
old, except the few who were mercifully removed from the 
great whirlpool of the heated life we were living ; the rest all 
clutched like birds of prey for the nearest carrion ; and we 
jumped the life to come. 

In the midst of our National Belshazzar-Feast, of pride, 
voluptuousness, and enchantment, the shot at Fort Sumter fell 
like a bolt of lightning. It struck the hearts of the revellers, 
and we began to take our eyes from the dust and turn them 
up to heaven. 

By one wave of that wand which never waves twice to do 
its work, the handwriting was written on all the walls, and the 
Palace of our greatness was sinking to ashes. The Republic 
was at stake. We had played, and we had lost. 

We had attempted an impossibility. We had tried to make 
Liberty and Slavery live together in the same soil. 

While the free North was prospering, we had allowed the 
enslaved to be immolated. While we could flourish under 
the fragrant branches of Liberty's tree, we were manuring 
the roots of the Upas, whose branches were spreading over 
our Northern communities, our homes, our hearts. Its 
subtle and deadly poison had already struck through the 
veins and arteries, and approached the springs of life. 

For a moment we were like a traveller arrested in the speed 
of his journey, with a fevered pulse and difficult breathing. 
The discovery did not come all at once ; nor is it certain that 
the nation has yet felt it deeply enough to be ready to re- 
cover. To Europe it looked like the beginning of our na- 
tional end, — an irrevocable leap to ruin. 

Was it death ? or was it fever with delirium ? 

It was all ! 

The only question now, after two years of struggle, which 
blot out all the puny strifes of other empires, is, whether 
there is a resurrection and a redeemed life for the great Re- 
puhlic of the ivorld. 



or THE REBELLION. 11 



II. 



The Eeal Heroes of the War—The Rank and Pile in the 
Hospital. 

Five days after the first Bull Run battle, I went through 
the improvised military hospitals of Washington. Since 
those dark days of terror and blood, I have not left the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, except for one day. 

During these twenty-two months, I have seen, I suppose, 
not less than forty thousand of our wounded, sick, and dis- 
abled soldiers, — at one time hardly less than five thousand 
being here from my own State (New York). Very few days 
have gone by in which I have not seen some of their sick or 
wounded "companions in arms" from nearly all the other 
loyal States. ' 

But my object is by no means to depict, even if my pen 
could do it, any very considerable number of scenes of agony, 
terror, or death. I shall not W7'ite a hook of liorrors ; one 
rather of cheerfulness, heroism, and hope. There is light 
even in a Military Hospital. I have wished to "let that 
light out," and have it illumine a million of hearts and homes, 
far away from the halls and chambers that have been conse- 
crated by a sublimity of patriotism, affection, love of home, 
and unfaltering endurance. One ray of such sunshine is 
worth more to the bereaved than a whole tale of tragedy, or 
a night of gloom. 

As I could not expand the space allotted to this volume, 
my difficulty has been in knowing rather what I could best 
leave out than best put in. I have known some cases I would 
have gladly introduced, each of which would more than fill a 



12 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

book like this. But I have endeavored to choose, from the 
wilderness of material, such scenes as would best illustrate 
the different phases of American character in the field and 
the hospital. In following this plan, I have preferred to 
take things somewhat at random; and, in sacrificing order in 
time and appropriateness of connection, I may have better 
succeeded (I trust) in bringing scenes more vividly to the 
mind of my reader. 

Every case spoken of in this work I either witnessed my- 
self, or I derived the facts from sources which stamp them 
with entire authenticity. 



The great Prince Eugene once said, "Anybody can be 
brave in battle under a good leader ; but he alone is the real 
hero who can be brave when the battle is over.'' 

The decisive conflicts of armies may be, and generally are, 
short ', but their results last forever. 

Those who lead embattled hosts and come home unscarred 
from the fields where whole battalions melted into the earth, 
and coTjps d'armees parted never to form in battie-line again, 
are crowned with the wreath which Victory loves to throw 
over the brows of its chieftains. Their names embellish the 
stately pages of history. Their examples live in the dreams 
of all young soldiers the nights before they leave home for 
their first campaigns. Monuments rise with their sculptured 
emblems, " to greet the sun in his coming." The sword or 
battle-axe they drew, or swung, was in the cause of home, 
country, and heroism. These monuments become Meccas of 
human devotion; and to them the men of after-times go, as 
to sacred shrines, to pay their tributes of admiration and 
gratitude. But, while these proud names make their undis- 
puted way down through the centuries, the great "rank and 
file," who won the field by their imperturbable coolness, the 
iron nerve that held steady when all was at stake, — hacked, 
hewn, battered, but immovable, — trusting in their leader, — 



OF THE REBELLION, 13 

and at last slain, — these are forgotten. They are swept be- 
yond the annals of history and the recollections of men. 

Where are the innumerable hosts that followed the ensigns 
of the conquerors who founded the empires and dynasties of 
antiquity? Who has written their record? What monu- 
ments have preserved their deeds? 

We know little on these subjects. 

The Koman soldier, who left his wife on the banks of the 
Tiber, to carry the eagles of Italy to distant lands, was sure 
that his family would not be forgotten if he fell. If he 
lived, some part of the soil he helped to conquer became his 
own farm; and there, as a Roman military colonist, he re- 
mained as one of the pioneers of civilization, and a defender 
of ^Uhe Eternal Empire.'' 

By modern nations it is now considered the duty of gov- 
ernment to extend to the disabled soldier all its paternal aid. 
It is, however, only of recent date that the system of sani- 
tary hospitals has been established, by which all the ap- 
pliances of modern art should be brought into use to restore 
the health of the sick, bind up their wounds, and give back 
once more the shattered veteran to his home and his country. 

England and France had been foremost in taking this 
grand step, to soften the asperities of war by the skill and 
humanity of science; and especially in the Crimea did the 
results place the whole world under obligation. With all 
the advantages of their experiments and demonstrations, our 
country was enabled to advance the sanitary military system 
by still further strides. In another portion of this volume I 
shall find space for some facts and illustrations on the mat- 
ter, w^hich I think legitimately appertain to the object I have 
in view. 



14 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



III. 

The Work of the Pen in this War. 

A THOUSAND books wiU be written about this Rebellion. 
Let them all come: the world will need them. Let every 
scene worth remembering be recorded by each looker-on. 
Let each man tell how the battle which he saw raged, — how 
his comrades fought and fell, — how each battalion answered 
to the order, Charge! — how each regiment closed in solid 
column, and each division formed its last line of defence or 
attack. Let no well-authenticated fact be lost. For we must 
not forget — least of all should the men who hold the pen — 
that, while we are straining our vision with these strange 
sights, we become the sacred depositaries of materials from 
which the artists of a later age will mature their sublime and 
finished pictures. 

But, fully as the incidents of the war have photographed 
themselves through the press, countless facts and scenes 
worthy of record may never get their place in history. We 
have been making history faster than all the pens could 
write it. 

This conflict has had to pass in review before the honest 
face of the Daguerrean lens : thus it has, in a certain sense, 
been compelled to write its own annals. But what would 
otherwise, at best, be only a lifeless and meaningless mass of 
material, has with the magic touch of the pen been in- 
stantly made instinct with life and radiant with significance. 
The empire of the pen can never be broken. The long line 
of its masters shows no interregnum. In leaping some chasm 
in the Dark Ages, we find the light of one great author flash- 
ing from one side of the gulf, and the light of an earlier 



OF THE REBELLION. 15 

writer streamino; in to meet it. We who are humbler mem- 
bers of the great Republic of Letters must look for no ex- 
emption from the great law : the lesser must yield to the 
greater. The working million cannot hope to be remem- 
bered as units. They toil, and think, and fight, and write, 
as armies. They weep and exult, they forge and produce; 
but they can have no place in far-off history. They march 
through the desert; but they must leave the glory of eternal 
remembrance to Moses, who leads them through. 

Authors form no exception. There are only a few books 
of much value long after they are written. A thousand his- 
torians wrote about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire, during fourteen centuries, till Gibbon constructed 
from the bewildering mass his imperishable work. Away 
into oblivion that host of authors floated, — beyond the reach 
of all but the learned and the curious. But their labors 
were not lost. It was a long stretch of Time's river in its 
sluggish passages. But it bore on its bosom the slowly accu- 
mulating records of the centuries, and they poured their 
treasures into Gibbon's hands. He saved them forever. 



16 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



IV. 

Heroism in the Hospital. 

* * * * The surgeon said, ''He can hardly live." 

He laid the hand down softly, and left tJds patient, to pass 
through the ward. 

It seemed to say that all that earth could do had been done, 
to save the life of the gallant young soldier. I followed the 
surgeon a few steps on the routine of duty. We stopped, and 
looked eacli other in the face. He knew I wanted to know 
the whole truth. 

" Must this boy die V 

" There is a shadow of a chance. I will come again after 
midnight." 

I went back, with a heavy heart, to the cot we had left, 
and, knowing something of hospitals and dying men, I sat 
down to wait and see what new symptoms would occur, with 
the full directions of the surgeon in any event. 

The opiate, or whatever it may have been, which I had last 
administered, could not take effect at once; and, somewhat 
worn out with the day's labors, I sat down to think. To 
sleep, was out of the question ; for I had become so deeply 
interested in this young man it seemed to me I could not 
give him up. 

* * ^ * * * Sjj 

It was nearly midnight. The gas had been turned off 
just enough to leave the light needed, and twilight was grate- 
ful to the sick-room; for in this vast chamber there were 
more than two hundred sick men. Now and then came a 
suppressed moan from one couch, or a low plaint of hope- 



OF THE REBELLION. 17 



o 



less paiu, — while at intervals thrilled from the high ceilin 
the shrill scream of agony. ]>ut all the while the full harvest- 
moon was pouring in all the lustrous sympathy and effulgence 
it could give, as it streamed over the marble pile called the 
Patent Office, the unfinished north wing of which had been 
dedicated to this house of suffering. 
j Almost noiselessly, the doors of this Avard opened every few 
moments, for the gentle tread of the night nurses, who came, 
in their sleepless vigils, to see if in these hours they could 
render some service still to the stricken, the fallen, and yet not 
comfortless. 

Leaving my young friend for a few moments, I walked 
through the north aisle; and it seemed to me — so perfect 
w^as the regime of the hospital, so grand were its architectural 
proportions — more like walking through some European cathe- 
dral by moonlight, than through a place for sick soldiers. The 
silence greater than speech, the suffering unexpressed, the 
heroism which did not utter one complaint, the complete- 
ness of the whole system of care and curative process, made 
one of those sights and scenes which I would not tear away 
from my memory if I could; for they have mingled themselves 
with associations that will link each month and year of time 
to come with all the months and years gone before them. 

I felt a strange interest in this young man, whom I had 
left in what I supposed was his last quiet slumber ; and yet 
I knew he would wake once more before he died. I approached 
his cot again. He was still sleeping, and so tranquilly I felt 
a little alarmed lest he might never wake, till I touched hia 
pulse and found it still softly beating. 

I let him sleep, and thought I would sit by his side till 
the surgeon came. — 

I took a long, free breath, for I supposed it was all hope- 
lessly over. Then I thought of his strange history : — I knew 

it well. 

2» 



18 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

He was born not far from Trenton Falls, — the youngest 
son, among several brothers, of one of the brave tillers of that 
hard soil. He had seen his family grow ujd nobly and stur- 
dily, under the discipline of a good religion and good govern- 
ment, and with a determination to defend both. When his 
country's troubles began, his first impulses thus found expres- 
sion to his brothers: — "Let me go; for you are all married; 
and if I fall, no matter." 

He went. He had followed the standard of the Republic 
into every battle-field where the struggle carried him, till, 
worn out, but not wounded, he was borne to this hospital in 
Washington, a sick boy. He seemed to have a charmed life, 
for on several occasions his comrades had been shot dead or 
wounded on either side; and when his last cartridge had done 
execution, he carried off two of his wounded companions 
from the field, bearing them and their muskets to the rear, — 
if there were a rear in the flight from the Bull Run of July, 
'61, — and nourished and watched and stood by these comrades 
till they died, and then got the help of a farmer to carry them 
with his cart, a whole day afterward, to be buried in a place 
which he chose. 

This boy's example had inspired that farmer with such 
benevolence — if he were not inspired by patriotism already — 
that he made honored graves for them; and the writer of this 
work knows where their ashes rest. 

When this was all over, the boy came back, as a kind of 
rear-guard, of one, in the flight of the army of the Potomac, 
and, having reached the city of Washington and reported 
himself to his commander, fell senseless on Pennsylvania 
Avenue. He was taken to a neighboring house and well cared 
for; and I saw him in the hospital of which I have spoken. 

But this was only his life as a soldier. There was another 
and a deeper life than that. The great loadstone that led him 
away was the magnet of his nation. Another loadstone held 
his heart at home : it was the magnet of Love. 



OF THE REBELLION. 19 

His wild and wayward history, — wild only with adventure 
and wayward only with romance, he seemed to me, as I looked 
upon his fjice, so calm, and chiselled into sculptured beauty, I 
thought, either he looked like an Apollino with his unstrung 
bow, or a nautilus, cast on the turbulent ocean, to be wafted 
to some unknown clime, or sink forever, on the floor of the 
deep sea, to find a coral sepulchre. 

His dark eyelashes — bent up in such clear relief against 
their white ground — slowly and calmly began to move. 

I sprang to my feet; for it seemed tome there was a chance 
yet. 

The surgeon was long in coming ] and yet I knew he would 
come. He did. His sharp and experienced eye, as he ap- 
proached the cot, opened with surprise. Touching my shoulder, 
he said, with surprise, — 

''He is still alive." 

In an instant, taking the hand of the dying or dead boy, — I 
scarcely knew which, — a faint smile passed over the surgeon's 
face. 

''I am not sure but he may come up yet. If he revives, 
there is one chance left for him, if it be but one in a thousand. 
But I will work for that chance, and see what it will come tC' 
' Here Art triumphs, if it triumphs at all.^ " 

The pulse seemed to be coming as he took the hand. 

"It acts strangely; but I have seen two or three cases very 
much like it. Mind you, I do not think we can do much with 
this case; but you stay and watch, and I will come back in 
half an hour." 

So, while he went through some other wards, I watched 
the patient. The last glimmer of life, which had given some 
light as this scene was being enacted, faded into what seemed 
to me the calmest repose of death. 

But then, I thought, it is a strange sight, a heart filled 
with the earnest passions of youth, in the first hopes of life 
budding into their fruition beneath his own primeval forest- 



20 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

shades, where if there be an element that ever sanctified an 
early life it would have built a sanctuary — for the love he 
must have borne to the fair being for whom he had treasured 
up his boyhood's jewels, for whom he gave up every thing of 
the earth earthy, to rescue a Republic, and then go back 
after this episode of suffering to inaugurate the life of a 
citizen farmer on the bleak hills of New York : — if all this 
could not sustain him, what could? — 

In former visits to him he had made me his confidant in 
regard to these matters. He seemed to be haunted with the 
idea that he would, after all, return to Utica, and once more 
see those he loved ; and yet he also seemed to me like one 
whose days were numbered, and the surgeon had told me, 
after repeated counsels with his professional brethren, that it 
was next to impossible to save his life, and that I must not 
expect it. 

All the while I clung to the belief that some vitality of 
faith, or love, or hope, or patriotism, or divine aid, would still 
send that boy back to the banks of the Mohawk. 

I saw another nervous twitch around the temples. I felt 
his pulse. It was an indication of hope, or sudden death. 

The surgeon came by again. 

''That boy has wonderful vitality,'^ he said, as he looked 
at his face. Whether it was purely my fancy, my hope, or a 
fact, I did not know, but twilight seemed to pass over his 
face. 

" Yes, yes — I — I — wait — a moment. Oh, I shall not die !" 

He opened his eyes calmly, and then a glow which I shall 
never forget suffused his cheek, and, lifting his emaciated hands 
for the first time in several weeks, — feebly, it is true, but they 
seemed to me strong, — he exclaimed, in a natural voice, ''How 
floats the old flag now, boys?'^ 

The transition from death to life seemed like enchantment. 
T could scarcely believe my senses. And yet I knew that if 
he ever rallied this would be the way. 



OF THE REBELLION. 21 

I now feared that his excitement would carry him beyond 
his strength. I could not keep him from talking. I was bend- 
ing over him to see if he would remember me. Looking me 
steadily in the eyes, his brows knit with perplexity for a few 
seconds, when with a smile of delight and surprise he said, 

" Yes! yes! It is you, Mr. L . I am glad you stayed with 

me. I have been dreaming about you while I've been asleep; 
and I must have been asleep a great while. How long ?" 

1 told him enough to let him understand how ill he had 
been, — how long, — and how weak he still was. He did not 
realize it. His eyes wandered down to his thin hands, white 
as alabaster, and through which the pale-blue thread-like 
veins wandered. 

"Oh ! Is it I? — so lean? I was not so when I fell sick." — 
And large tears rolled down his cheeks. 

I implored him to be quiet and rest, and I promised him he 
should get better every day, and be able to go home in a short 
time. But he grew impatient the more I tried to soothe and 
restrain him. 

He looked at me beseechingly, and asked, " Won't you let 
me talk a little ? ' I must know something more, or it seems 
to me I shall go crazy. Please put your ear down to me : I 
won't speak loud, — I won't get excited." 

I did. — " Have you got any letters for me ?" 

"Yes, but they are at my office. You shall have them to- 
morrow. They are all well at home." 
- "And Bella?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh, God be praised !"— 

After a few moments of repose, he again opened his eyes 
wide. — 

"I have been gone so long from the army! It seemed as 
though I never could get back when I got home. I got away; 
and I wandered, and wandered. — Oh, how tired I was ! 
Where is McDowell ? — Is General Scott dead ? They said so. 



22 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Did they carry off Old Abe ? How did he get back ? Did 
the Rebels get into Washington that night? How long have 
I been sick? What place is this? — Oh, my head I my 
head !" 

I was frightened. He had risen from the deep ocean into 
the sunlight for a brief hour, and now he seemed to be going 
down to come up no more. The tender chord of memory 
had given way. In a little while the surgeon came by, and I 
told him what had happened. 

"I was afraid of that. But I think we can manage it. If 
he wakes again within two hours, give him this powder on 
his tongue, and a sip of the liquid. If he does not, wake 
him gently." 

And so that anxious night wore away. In the morning he 
woke bright and clear; and from that hour he began to get 
well. But for whole days his life was pulsating in its gossa- 
mer tenement, fluttering over the misty barriers of the spirit- 
world. 

Bella's letters, received during his extreme illness, could 
now be read. They were among the noblest ever written by 
woman. 

"Our heart-prayers *for you have been answered by our 
Father. We now wait only for your return. When we 
parted, it was not with repining : you had gone to the altar 
of your country in solemn and complete dedication. I too 
was prepared for the sacrifice. I expected it, although I 
knew how crushingly the blow would fall. But if you had 
not loved your country better than Bella, it would have broken 
her heart. I hope now in a few weeks you will be again by 
my side. When your health is once more restored, I will 
promise in advance, as you desire, not to try to keep you from 
rejoining your regiment; and if the stars have written that 



OF THE REBELLION. 23 

Walter shall not be my husband, God has decreed that I shall 
die a widow never married/^ 

5|^ 'T- 'l^ 'K 'T* *?* 

He did return to the Mohawk Valley. He married Bella. 
He returned to the war ; and on the eve of the great day of 
Antietam he heard that his son was born, and the hero-father 
died by the side of Hooker. — Sic transit gloria mundi. 



24 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



Mount Vernon in Other Days. 

The stream of Time, which sweeps almost every thing human 
to oblivion, passes without injury by the everlasting column 
of Washington's fame. Those convulsions which threaten 
the permanence of our Union, and sicken us with the strifes 
of parties and the gore of battle, only render more and more 
dear the name of the Father of the American Republic. 

The nations of the Old World, as they lift their wearied 
and half-palsied arms to strike for Liberty, utter the name of 
Washington with veneration, gratitude, and love. Whereverjr 
the all-glowing sun lights up the homes of earth's children, — i 
through all the continents and islands, along all the shoresl 
and rivers, on ever}^ green mountain's side, and down every!' 
blushing valley, — the old tell his history to the young, and alLl 
nations rise up and call him blessed. ; 

All that belonged to him has become dear to mankind.. 
The ground his feet pressed is sacred. The trees he planted I 
with his own hand, the groves through which he walked att 
evening, still seem to breathe his name as they rustle their 
zephyr-music. Even the sparkling ripples of that majestic 
stream which flows on by Mount Vernon seem to utter intel- 
ligible words to the ear of the pilgrim who from that green 
lawn looks through the bending boughs by moonlight on the 
glistening waters. 

It was a beautiful spring morning, many years ago, when 
we set out from Washington to visit for the first time this^ 
Mecca of Liberty. The balmy air wafted through the carriage 
windows the fragrance of early flowers, just peeping out fromi 



OF THE REBELLION. 25 

the warm banks of the Potomac. The sun came calmly up 
over the old dome of the Capitol, and the mists rose from the 
bosom of the river to greet him, and then floated far away into 
the blue sky, as spirits go when they leave us for that bright 
land 

" Where everlasting spring abides, 
And never-withering flowers." 

"We could not say that there was a gay or glad heart among 
us : there would have been some, had we not been going to 
the Tomb of the Father of his country. But there was some- 
thing so holy in the thought that we were approaching the 
spot where the greatest and purest of mankind rested from his 
heroism, that we felt mirth had no place in our feelings, and 
into that day levity could not enter. 

But it was a cheerful ride, and an inspiring day. We do 
not remember that a cloud moved over our little party during 
the excursion ; nor was our cheerfulness interrupted till we 
had reached the shrine of our pilgrimage and stood before 
the sarcophagus where the dust of Washington reposes. 

No matter for our ride along the river, nor for its picturesque 
bends, or banks, or lawns, or woodlands. At every turn in 
the road we saw the calm waters of the silver stream, around 
which linger memories that are sanctified by all that is brave 
in chivalry and touching in patriotism. 

A long ride through the oak forests brought us to the vene- 
rable mansion where Washington lived and died. At the 
porter's lodge we stopped to see the only living servant of the 
Patriot. She lived in the lodge, and still watched the gate. 

She was fifteen years old when " the general" came back 
from the wars, covered with victory ; and he remembered her well 
as he rode through the gate, and said, "Ah. my little Sylvia, 
the Britishers didn't hit me, after all : and they have all gone 
back to Old England, and I have come home to live and die 
on the estate :" — and young Sylvia seized " the general's" 
hand and wet it with her tears. She saw Washington die ; 



26 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

slie saw liim wlien be was dead : and when she spoke of hini 
she looked up to heaven, and, pointing her hand away, said, 
^' Well, if we ever go there we shall see him again." 

We left this octogenarian keeper, and she said many a kind 
word to us as we went on slowly threading our way to the 
mansion, — through deep ravines from which only the upper 
sky was visible, and now emerging on eminences from which 
we hoped to get at least a glimpse of the mansion. But 
holier feelings filled up the interval. 

We were passing over new ground, where, warm with life 
and radiant with beneficence, the form of the hero so often 
passed. Even the air seemed haunted by his presence : every 
step we took was an epic. 

See the outlines of the great historical picture. Passing 
this same rugged avenue, first the youth Greorge Washington^ 
with his surveying-instruments, to measure off" the vast wilder- 
ness of the West, the happy homes he was afterwards to offer 
his brothers made free : — young Major Washington, setting- 
out to instruct them in the art of war, to prepare them to 
achieve their independence: — Colonel Wa&\nngton, on his de- 
parture to repel foreign and savage invaders: — the Repi-e- 
sentative, passing to and from the Congress of the patriots: — 
the heroic general, coming at long intervals through that war 
of fraternal blood, and going forth again to the sanguinary 
struggles of the Revolution, where brave men staked Liherfi/ 
in the desperate game with King, Lords, and Commons : — the 
Farmer, going out to and returning from his fields: — the 
President, on his way to administer the government of a 
people he had led through the exhausting perils of an ail-but 
exterminating war : — and, last of all, the citizen Washington, 
who had scorned a crown, as too base a reward for his long 
services in the cause of human freedom — returning by the 
same road we were travelling, his great heart filled with long- 
ings for home. 

The carriage rising an eminence gave us a glimpse of the 



OF THE REBELLION. 27 

Wall and observatory of the Home of ]Va$hington. We were 
not ashamed of a i'Q^Y tears which came unbidden to our eyes. 

We reached the gate of the mansion. A rm?i — an old ruin 
— stood before us. It was not a feudal castle, with deep trench 
once filled with water; nor draw-bridge, over which once clat- 
tered the hoofs of warriors' steeds; nor massive arch, under 
which bent the plume of knight; nor spacious court-yard, in 
which the spears of an heroic band flashed in the moonlight; 
nor vast banquet-hall, that rang to the clangor of Crusader 
or the merry shout of victorious warrior wdio had come from 
measuring lance with the Infidel, to tell his tale of adventure 
to the startled ear of Europe. There was no watch-word; no 
vesper-chime stealing softly on the evening air; no hollow 
chant nor monkish prayer in gloomy chapel; no moon-lit watch 
on the overlooking tower. No one of all these. It was 
grander, better, dearer, than all this heroic legend. 

It was once the home of the Father of a great and glorious 
nation, whose eagle wiugs now stretch from the turbulent 
Atlantic — far away over rich valleys waving with corn and 
dotted with happy habitations, rugged mountains, wide rivers, 
and green prairies — to the golden shores of the Pacific, where 
Empire looks toward the purple East and has made the circuit 
of the globe. 

It was a ruin ! The master of the house had long since gone 
away to another country, and Time had left the mansion like 

" Some banquet-hall deserted." 

The master would never return. 

The servants told us that the present master would next 
year repair the dwelling. 

" Oh, no !" we w^ould have said to him. ^' Leave the holy 
place as he left it. Ye cannot make us think he has come 
back ; ye cannot make good his place. Let the spot where 
he lived and died be left. Eternity is his dwelling now. Let 
Time spread its ivy never-sere kindly over the mansion, and 



28 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

let not the winds blow harshly against it; for the great master 
is gone, and will return no more. Ye cannot make the place 
what it once was." 

They showed us the apartments which are thrown open to 
visitors. We had letters ; but we asked no privileges there 
which could not be accorded to all. We saw the hall, the 
drawing room, the parlor, and the dining-room, with the richly 
sculptured mantel-piece which La Fayette gave him. 

As we passed out under the open sky, they pointed out to 
us the chamber where Washington died. We looked up to 
the windows. They showed us the lemon-tree he planted, 
old, but green still, — and many plants in the conservatory, 
with long box alleys, and large squares, and page bushes, all 
planned and planted by his hand. 

Down the green slope towards the river, not far from the 
bank, they showed us Washington's Tomb. We reverently 
gathered there, and bowed in ^lence and gratitude. 

As the sun was going down behind the old oaks, fringing 
the edges of the clouds with gold, we entered our boat, and 
Bailed slowly by under the lengthening shadows of the sacred 
groves which cluster their foliage around Mount Vernon. 

* :}s :^ * * :|« 

Those were better days than we have now. 



OF THE REBELLION. 29 



VI. 

Cloaked Poes — Croakers, and all other Secessionists. 

No war ever began with greater unanimity than this. The 
mighty heart of the people leaped at a single bound, from its 
full but tranquil pulsations, into the wild and hurried beatings 
of a continental enthusiasm. From the bleak hill-sides of 
New England, from the shores of the ocean lakes of the 
North, from the undulating prairies of the distant West, 
from the crowded marts of commerce, and from ten thou- 
sand hamlets of peace and plenty, a million men came, rush- 
ing to avenge the insulted honor of the nation and plant 
once more on our outer battlements the fallen standard of the 
Kepublic. 

The flow of that current was irresistible; every thing 
gave way to the tramp of the embattled hosts. It was no 
time for trifling, nor for triflers. The secret foe of the Union 
ikept his own counsel. The men whose hearts were with the 
1 parricides of the Fatherland stood back from the on-rolling tide, 
and cursed the gathering tempest. But the horde of poli- 
iticians, who had retired in sullen disappointment from the 
late Presidential election, with hearts all covered with gan- 
Igrene, and pockets once filled, but now emptied of the re- 
wards of corruption and crime, — many of these seized the 
first chance that invited to new scenes of robbery and pecu- 
lation. 

Hie j^oUticians of all parties, en masse, adoj^fcd tlie war, 
and they have carried it on to tliis day. They, at least, have 
<^ made a good thing out of it," as they say. 

But this greedy horde could not all be satisfied. Thero 

3* 



30 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

were not green things enough for all the locusts; there were 
not lambs enough for the whole pack of wolves. They were 
not patriotic enough to fight anywhere except at an election ; 
— they were too lazy to work, and they must eat. There 
were not commissions enough in the army, nor sinecures 
enough in civil life, for the more " decent" of this class ; and 
finally, when the war had been inaugurated into a grand, 
solemn fact, and it rose up to the gaze of the world in all 
its stupendous proportions, black with treason, and smoking 
with blood unrighteously shed, — this unpaid, unbribed, un- 
washed locust-swarm seized the first occasion to disparage the 
administratiou, and to exaggerate the ill fortune and condemn 
the management of the war. 

Every disappointed seeker for office began to " doubt how 
the thing would come out." Day by day he shook his head 
despairingly; and when he was finally told to '^get out of 
the way, and be off" with himself, he swore, in the holy in- 
dignation of his soul, that " the generals were all fools, the 
Cabinet all rascals, and Old Abe a &c.^' 

Then the Secessionists proper. Washington swarmed 
with them. They were never asleep. Well might a member 
of Mr. Davis's cabal, in writing to a friend there (the letter 
was intercepted), say, " The Lincolnites may rest assured we 
shall only alarm their capital. We do not want it. It is 
of more use to us in their hands. It answers all our pur- 
poses. Our friends are there, and they are doing their 
work." They were, and they found no lack of coadjutors 
or agents in any department : while their sympathizers were 
slyly gliding from salon to salon in every hotel where the best 
society held its conversazzioni. 

So, too, was it in the private houses of the rich. Washing- 
ton had always been a Southern city. Now it was A SE- 
CESSION CAPITAL. Its society had always been of the 
Southern type. There were wealth, taste, pride, gallantry, 
beauty, pleasure, and somewhat of the abandon which we 



OF THE REBELLION. 31 

recognize the nearer we go to the tropics. Few of the rich 
families of the North came here, fewer still lived here. All 
the richest families of the South did both. Washington they 
looked upon as their Northern home. Here all the Foreign 
Embassies were established, and spasmodic efforts were made 
to have and hold a Kepublican court. 

But over it all teas spread the slime of Slave?-?/. The popu- 
lation was made up of Foreign Ministers, Heads of Depart- 
ment, Members of Congress, Judges of the Supreme Court, 
old dowagers and wives of absent officers, poor clerks, " poor 
whites,'^ shiftless and lazy negroes, and still poorer and lazier 
office-seekers. 

Once rid of the atmosphere reeking with the slave-lash 
and the bowie-knife, which the politics and politicians of the 
South had infused into Washington, there came the jQrst hope 
of society in the capital. It was the only capital of any 
nation without society. I need not say that by society I 
mean intercourse between that body of men and women who 
represent the highest culture and intelligence, the greatest 
refinement, delicacy, and blandishments of women, the loftiest 
standard of honor and chivalry in men, the fullest appre- 
ciation of learning, art, and beauty to which a nation has at- 
tained. To be society worthy of the name, such reunions 
must represent the best civilization of the people. In later 
days, such society has not been seen in Washington. Its 
palmy days passed away with the graceful regime of Ladies 
Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Sedgwick, Bingham, and 
that glorious company of superb women who lent the fasci- 
nations of wit, taste, and beauty to adorn the early days of 
the Republic. 

But through the medium of such society as we have had, 
the view of practical secession has been industriously in- 
jected, and in all its subtlest forms. It has worn chameleon 
hues; it has borrowed, for the time, all the lights and 
shadows that lay within its reach. 



32 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

In one coterie, severe criticisms were passed on generals at 
the head of their armies; and, with all the eagerness of cor- 
morant birds snuffing the carrion from afar, they seized the 
first discouraging rumor floating on the idle wind, and blew 
the gentlest breeze into a tempest. 

If a secession woman had a husband, or brother, or lover, 
who had been refused a commission in the army, she did not 
hesitate to predict "the final failure of the Yankee cause, and 
the ultimate triumph of the chivalric sons of the Soutli,'^ 
" the deal', simn?/ South.'' 

And thus indignant crinoline, which had flirted in vain 
for a lover by being patriotic, became secesh when sailing in 
disloyal waters. 

In another circle, of men, or women, or both (all of the 
upper classes, so called), serious and downcast looks were seen, 
and to every new visitor the "deep and painful regret" was 
expressed " lest Mr. Lincoln might be going too fiir in making 
his arrests;" "and are they not arbitrary? And then to 
take gentlemen from their offices, and even from their sleeping- 
chambers, and convey them to a distant city, and plunge 
them into a foul prison, tenanted by felons and haunted by 
rats! And then think of G-eneral Butler! that vulgar Yan- 
kee ! who published one of his tyrannical edicts, and placarded 
the insult on every corner of the Crescent City, to the ladies 
of New Orleans" ! 

And yet these same "gentle angels" were at the time be- 
sieging President and Secretaries for a commission for -, 

"a brave and gallant fellow, who had rendered such signal 
services to the Federal cause, and longed so earnestly to put 
the old flag back where it once waved so proudly.^^ 

This class of females have shown an alacrity and cleverness 
in their management in Washington which would have been 
tolerable at least in an honest cause. But they were com- 
pletely outdone by the artistes of the secession drama. Some 
few, sprightly, sharp-witted, and — as the world goes — charming 



OF THE REBELLION. 33 

omen, undertook the more difficult parts. They were in no 
liot haste to win. They were looking for the main chance, — 
to fail once or twice, perhaps, but to win at last. 

Never did Paul Morphy move chess-men with more studied 
care ; never did he conceal more completely every line of ex- 
pression in his face; never did his heart palpitate with half 
the excitement, while making his decisive and finishing play. 

These women of the world watched every expression in the 
eyes of their listeners, and measured every gesture they made 
before the men who, meeting them by design or accident, 
swelled the retinue of their impoverished but pretentious 
court. 

Nothing but well-merited severity, visited at the right time 
and on the right heads, broke up this den of she-vipers that 
were striking their deadly fangs into the vitals of the Ke- 
public. There was squirming and hissing, but the den was 
finally broken up. 

All these subtle agencies of secession worked harmoniously 
with bolder and more public demonstrations of disloyalty. In 
'both Houses of Congress, men no better than South Carolina 
traitors (often not half so bad), and always more dangerous, 
unblushingly reviled the Union, laughed the Eepublic to 
scorn, and trod the holy traditions of our co77i?7ia?i-WEALTH 
into the dust. 

These traitors were allowed to play the part of Catiline in 
open House, — in open Senate, — in the streets, — most of all, in 
that loud-mouthed, blatant talk which is deemed eloquence in 
bar-rooms, but bad manners in decent society, and treason 
anywhere. 

And one of the chief themes of noisy discourse — illegal 
arrests ! Why illegal ? Is it illegal to arrest the murderer 
of a man? and is it not legal and just to seize and incar- 
cerate the villain who is contemplating the wholesale murder 
of the friends of the nation, — the defenders of its Union, — 
the protectors of its peace, its nationality and life ? Is vio- 



34 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

lence to be the law? Is the wretch who brandishes the torch 
of the incendiary recklessly, and scatters fire, arrows, and 
death through peaceful and loyal communities, to go on in 
his dreadful mission unchecked, unmanacled, unchained ? 

If such men escape justice, where can good citizens look 
even for mercy ? 

If the sever Ifi/ of Mr. Lincoln is complained of by treason- 
hatchers or treason-mongers, how infinite must be the all 
forgiving benevolence of that much-abused man ! 

No ! no I a tliousaud times No ! No blood rests on that 
trouijlcd head. 



OF THE REBELLION. 35 



VII. 

Army Chaplains, and Old Mortality. 

It is supposed that every regiment has its chaplain. A 
large number of Congressional statutes have been enacted on 
this subject, for the regular army. By an act approved Ju- 
ly ITthj 18G2, the qualifications of chaphiius in the army and 
volunteers are thus defined : — 

"That no person shall be appointed a chaplain in the 
United States army who is not a regularly ordained minister 
of some religious denomination, and who does not present 
testimonials of his present good standing as such minister, 
with a recommendation for his appointment as an army chap- 
lain, from some authorized ecclesiastical body, or not less than 
five accredited ministers belonging to said religious denomi- 
nation." 

His allowances are : one horse, two rations, and twelve 
hundred dollars a year, or somewhat over fifteen hundred 
dollars. He is governed by the laws of discipline, like all 
other officers. 

Such are the provisions made for this important class. 
Their duties are perfectly well known. They are pastors of 
their reji'iments, which constitute their cono-resjations. All 
their duties begin and end with their '^ charge.'' To fulfil 
their oath of office, they must do all in their power for the 
temporal and spiritual good of their members. Every Chris- 
tian man knows what these duties are, and especially do 
soldiers. 

To a fiiithful and conscientious clergyman, who delights in 
doing good, no better or broader field of activity or useful- 
ness is needed or desired. To look after the well-being of a 



36 THE LIGHT AND DAR^ 

thousand men, exposed to an amount of danger, disease, and 
death fourfold, and sometimes a hundredfold, greater than 
they would be in the peaceful pursuits of civil life ; to watch 
by the sick, or wounded, or dying soldier, with no bed but 
the ground ; to win his respect and affection ; to entertain 
him in his hours of weariness and pain j to write letters for 
him to his friends ; to win the way to his brave heart, and 
inspire his soul with sublime aspirations for the better life to 
come ', to administer to his parting spirit the infallible conso- 
lations of Christianity, secure a safe burial-place for the de- 
parted, and shed over the sepulchre all the solemn honors of 
Christian burial ', and, finally, to send the whole record to his 
family; — such is the duty of an army chaplain. Nothing less 
was contemplated by Congress in creating the office, and Grod 
will accept nothing less from the minister, if He greets him 
on his advent to judgment with the words, "Well done, 
thou good and faithful servant." Of our twelve hundred 
chaplains, how many such have we ? 

This is a painful subject to discuss; for I know of nothing 
that would cost me a keener pang than to appear to attempt 
to speak lightly of the ministers of religion, much less of 
the faith of the "Holy Man of Nazareth." Nay, it is 
chiefly because I attach such infinite value to revealed reli- 
gion, as the only hope of man on both sides of the tomb, 
that I am jealous of this cause. 

Our Government has sent these spiritual pastors, teachers, 
fathers, and guides, and commissioned them to look after the 
good of upwards of a million of men ; and a great Christian 
Republic expects them to do their duty. The common im- 
pression is that they do 

I am sorry to dispel the illusion ; but I must. We will 
first probe the sore, and then look for a remedy. 

If we divide the army chaplains into five classes, we may 
more readily comprehend the case. 

First. There are some men who, by meaws best known to 



OP THE REBELLION. 37 

themselves, stole their way into the service. They were not 
only destitute of every qualification for the chaplaincy, but 
they were not fit to live in decent society. Of course, such 
appointments were obtained by unfair means. It is hoped 
that their numbers were few, and that most of them have 
been dismissed. But, as they were seldom seen by their 
regiments, they did little direct harm to their flocks. But 
they brought disgrace enough on the Government and their 
profession, by frequenting scenes of vice and pollution and 
indulging in the lowest forms of bestiality. 

The seco7id class was made up chiefly of men of faultless 
morals, perhaps, but who had no liking for the practical busi- 
ness of "saving souls,^' and least of all for the rough life of 
the camp. I have seen many such men, who in the longest 
conversations would neither make an allusion to the subject of 
the Christian religion nor recognize an allusion to it by others. 
Some of them had never gone any further in the clerical 
profession than to enter it j or if they had assumed pastoral 
relations, they had pocketed their salaries and walked through 
their parts. Against such chaplains no charges could be 
brought, for they seldom visited their regiments, except for 
an excursion of pleasure, to witness a dress parade and ride 
with the staff" on a "grand review." They managed to keep 
their furloughs all right, and they lived as luxuriously as 
they could on good salaries. But if they ever thought of 
their regiments, thinned by battle or wasted by disease, the 
thought brought no serious twinge of conscience, nor was 
their honor wounded by skulking from a duty they had sworn 
to perform. This class is by no means a small one. 

A third list embraces invalids and broken-down men, who, 
for the most part, were physically incompetent to the duties 
they proposed to undertake, — unsuccessful preachers, who, 
after years of failure, discovered at last, what everybody else 
always knew, that they never had "a call to preach." But 
the war broke out, and they must "join the army." Nobody 

4. 



38 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

had any objection, and they went. Confirmed invalids, who 
'had scrimped and eked out a lean kind of existence, now 
louching down on family relations, trying to teach the clas 
sics in some academy, or wandering about, living on their 
brethren in the ministry ! Why, every kind-hearted person 
would aid so worthy and ^^so good a man '^ to get so good a 
place. It may seem all right; but in doing a kindness to one 
man, an eternal wrong is done to the souls of a thousand. 

The fourth is a higher, but still inefficient, class. They are 
men who went to do good to their fellows and their country; 
their hearts were in their work; their every word and deed 
said to the bayoneted column marching to the field, '^ Where 
you go I will go; your country shall be my country, and my 
God shall be your God." Such men go with their regiments. 
They enter at once into all their interests and feelings. They 
make it their sole business to take care of the health, the com- 
fort, the morals, the manners, the happiness, the very salva- 
tion, of their soldiers. They break down the first few days, or 
weeks, or months of a campaign; they are furloughed, and 
their regiments are left without any social or spiritual guide; 
no prayer is said by the sick-bed ; no word of consolation is 
whispered in the ear of the dying, and the poor boy sinks into 
a neglected soldier's grave. 

The Ji/th and last class are model chaplains, — the only men 
who are really qualified to fill the office, and whose usefulness, \ 
in the highest sense of the word, cannot be overestimated. 
No men in the army or the country are doing more good in 
the great cause. Their qualifications are peculiar; so are 
their duties. 

They are sound, able-bodied men, who can endure the hard- 
ships of a campaign as well as any officer. They know what 
they undertake, and they are not surprised when they find the 
hard work coming. Such a man starts with his regiment, 
and before one week is over he has won every heart in it. 
The first man that is sick finds the chaplain at his side. All 



OF THE REBELLION 39 

bad language is laid aside in his hearing. All uncleanly 
habits are jjiodified or abandoned. Better attention is given 
to the laws of health. More and better books and journals 
are got and read. A kinder and more humane feeling is in- 
culcated among the men. Letters are more frequently 
written to friends. More money is sent home. Any thing 
lost is oftener found; any thing stolen is oftener returned. 

Such a chaplain can call every man by name. He knows 
the history of every man, and every man honors and loves him. 
He makes him, in the best acceptation of the term, his ''father 
confessor.^' It is needless to say that not a single man in such 

regiment can escape the benign influence that emanates from 
the man of God. He can no more escape it than the lamb in 
the meadow, or the wild beast in the desert, can escape the 
sunlight. That sunlight illumines, softens, refines, purifies, 
strengthens. It shines all through the camp. It reaches all 
the officers, and, if they were good men before, they rejoice 
and become better ; if they were bad, they keep silent and 
grow no worse. I have observed that ofiicers of regiments 
which have such chaplains invariably hold the same language 
in speaking of them. They ''do not know what they could do 
without their chaplains." They know how much easier it is 
to bring a regiment up to a high standard of discipline, and 
hold it there, with the aid of a devoted chaplain's example 
and ministrations. His influence is good, and only good, and 
that continually. Nothing can make up for its absence.* 

*■ In citing a passage from one of Rev. Wm. H. Channing's Washington 
Discourses, I cannot help thanking that devoted minister again, in hehalf 
of hundreds of the sick: he has comforted. 

"It has been the testimony of experienced surgeons, that never in a long 
life has it happened to them, amid such companies of wounded, to see so 
many cases of agonizing distress. Early that morning, and late that 
evening, was it my privilege, as one of the chaplains of the hospital, to 
minister to the wants of these fellow-beings. I could tell you of many, 
many scenes. I will single out but three; and I do it for no petty purpose 
of exciting superficial sympathies. I stood by the bedside and wrote a 



40 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Nor let it be supposed that among the rank and file the 
words of the Bible or the voice of prayer sound jinfamiliar. 
I have seen whole regiments where the great majority were 
well-educated Christian young men. I should hazard little 
in saying that nine out of ten of our native-born soldiers are 

parting letter, faintly dictated to me by a stalwart man, beyond the years 
of middle life, — one of the grandest styles of men that come from our com- 
mon people. He had received three bullet-wounds, and, as if that was not 
enough, he had been shattered by a shell, and his life was fast giving out. 
Had he not been a Hercules he would have died a week before. And yet, 
agonizing as were the cramps that distorted his limbs, it was with a per- 
fect serenity of expression, with entire self-command, that that man dic- 
tated to me what he knew well, — his parting words to his wife and children, 
whom he left only a few months ago, 'that they would unite in prayer for 
him to God; that he possibly might be restored, but his suflFerings would 
end most probably in death.' The spirit of the Prince of Peace was there. 

"And there was another case. He was a young man, a lately-married 
man, one whose home had not yet been blessed with children, who had 
left behind him a devoted wife and gone forth to serve his country. If 
you had seen him sleeping there and studied his features as he slumbered, 
the delicate chiselling of his countenance, and a sweetness in his look, — a 
latent inspiration, — you would have said he was a poet. Yet he was 
wounded mortally. As I asked him for his last words to his wife, he said, 
'Tell her that I am wounded; tell her that I am here; but do not tell her 
how much I am injured, because it might be the source of too much pain.* 
There was something in the delicacy and dignity and consideration for 
that sweet friend whom he had left behind, which seemed to be overflow- 
ing with the spirit of the Prince of Peace. 

"The last of these instances, which was perhaps more touching, is of a 
boy who had scarce seen sixteen summers. He was a model for a painter 
or a sculptor. He could scarcely speak at all, but managed, however, to 
utter these few words before he received the last oflBces of his religion (ho 
was a Catholic) : * Would that I could write to my mother !* Thus, as 
the soul is passing away, how fondly it turns to the memory of a mother! 
After he was gone, we opened his papers. I found letters from that mother 
to him, testifying that this boy, all through these battles, month by month, 
had never forgotten her. Month by month, or quarter by quarter, as his 
pay came in, he sent it to her. It was my last sad duty yesterday after- 
noon to write a letter to that mother; but I could write in the confidence 
that the Prince of Peace was there, and with the perfect assurance that 
her beautiful, brave boy, whom she had sent forth with benedictions, 
would be restored to her in the eternal home, never to be separated again." 



OF THE REBELLION. 41 

as well or better informed of the nature of religion, and the 
obligations it imposes, than the men they left at home. I am 
equally persuaded that, making fair allowance for increased 
exposure to rough influences, the removal of the restraints 
of civil life and the amenities of happy homes, they are better. 
They are certainly more moral and decent, and commit fewer 
excesses; for they have fewer opportunities to indulge in 
those lower vices which, either openly or secretly, are always 
eating away at the vitals even of what we call Christian com- 
munities. 

There are, too, in our Xerxean host, tens of thousands of 
upright, conscientious. Christian men, who still remember the 
instructions of pious mothers and exemplary ministers of the 
gospel, — men who carry a little Bible or Testament in their 
knapsacks in all their marches. These were many of them 
parting gifts of mothers, wives, sisters, and loved ones; and 
many a soldier would sooner part with any other of his little 
possessions. 

How wrong, how cruel, to cheat that soldier by giving him 
no chaplain, or something worse, — a bad one! 

And then the whole body of commissioned officers have 
been educated in the Christian religion, and. Providence be 
praised, a generous portion of them are Christian men. They 
are all friends of virtue and morality in the camp at least, 
and always are ready to second a good chaplain in the execu- 
tion of his mission.* 

■^ -^ ^ 1^ -^ ■^ 

I wish I had space in this book to give some account of 

* The following extract is from the letter of a gentleman who describes 
what he saw : — 

Standing by General Mitchers bedside, he reached out his hand and 
took mine, and, looking up in my face, he said, "It is a blessed thing to 
have a Christian's hope in a time like this." An hour after, he beckoned 
me, and, feebly shaking my hand, said, "You must not stay any longer; 
go now, and come to me in the morning." Major Birch, who had been 
untiring in his attentions, entered, almost convulsed with grief. He had 



42 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

what I have seen of the work of our chaplains in the hospi- 
tals since this war began. At several different periods, almost 
every one of the (from ten to forty) hospitals of the District 
sent out its dead every day. In each establishment pro- 
vision was made for the services of army chaplains. While 
even here, under the immediate inspection of the Government, 
hundreds of men drooped and died, without seeing a chap- 
lain's face, and thousands were tumbled into holes and 
trenches, without Christian burial,* still a faithful few 

just taken down the last will and wishes of his beloved commander. He 
conducted the Rev. Mr. Strickland to the bedside of the general, and 
beckoned me to follow. I did not hear the words of the general as the 
Rev. Mr. Strickland stooped to speak to him ; but I did hear him say, 
"Kneel down," and then ask Mr. Strickland to make a short prayer. 
How still he lay while that prayer went up to the throne of the God of bat- 
tles ! At its conclusion, as we rose, his eyes rested on me, and his hand 
was extended again. " You can do me no good," said he, faintly : " do 
not stay." His mind seemed perfectly clear and calm ; but he was failing 
constantly. 

Oh, it is a tearful sight to us all to see a father thus dying ; dying in 
the same house with his two sons and they not know it, — not permitted 
to look upon his face, — not permitted to treasure his last words, his last 
look; that all these must be given to strangers. But they are too sick 
yet to bear the blow ; it would shatter them ; therefore they must be kept 
in ignorance till a coming hour. Seven p.m. — General Mitchel has 
breathed his last. He is gone from us. Our hopes that were placed on 
him must be lifted higher, — higher. With Victor Hugo, we must learn to 
say, " It is not generals or soldiers, but God, who must give us the 
victory in this war of the powers of darkness." General Mitchel had entire 
possession of his faculties till within an hour or two of his departure, 
■vyhen his reason seemed to wander. His last intelligent look was to the 
Rev. Mr. Strickland. Seeing him approach the bed, he looked up de- 
voutly, and, lifting his hand, pointed upward twice. So passed he from 
among men. 

-"Soldiers' Funerals. — There is no department of the army so well 
officered, as to numbers, as the ministerial. Chaplains abound throughout 
the army, but nowhere do they abound so plenteously as in this city. 
The smallest hospital has its chaplain, and some of the larger ones have 
as many as three. Notwithstanding this abundant supply, a large ma- 
jority of the five thousand patriots who slumber near the Soldiers' 
Home have been consigned to mother earth with little more ceremony 



OF THE REBELLION. 43 

never deserted their posts or flagged in their duty. I have 
known such men pass whole weeks among the sick and dying, 
— night and day, — remitting their toil only for a little food 
or sleep, till the strength of the strongest gave way. Oh, 
how often, when the lowly-uttered prayer was going up by 
the side of one dying man, have I seen other sufferers 
through the ward languidly turn their ears to listen to the 
words of holy consolation, — all sick, all suffering, all sorrow- 
ful, but all famishino; " for the bread of life"! Such are the 
spots for prayer. 



'O 



*'0h, when the heart is full, when bitter thoughts 

Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 

And the poor common words of courtesy 

Are such a very mockery, how much 

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer !" 

than the coffining without the military ceremony to which they were en- 
titled, and not even a chaplain to commit ' dust to dust.' 

"If the chaplains of hospitals cannot find time, between drawing their 
pay and distributing ' soldiers' banners,' to attend the funerals of 
soldiers who die in hospitals, why may not one be stationed at the 
Soldiers' Home for this purpose ?" — Washington Chronicle. 



44 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



VIII. 

L'Esprit de Corps — Eloquence in tlie Army. 

Fond as are Americans of public speaking, and natural 
orators as most of them are, it has seemed to me very strange 
that we should have seen so little of it in our armies. 

Appeals to the patriotism and the valor of soldiers, by 
their leaders, have, in all ages and with all people, been 
among the most potent agencies invoked for inspiring courage 
and inflaming enthusiasm. All the great generals of an- 
tiquity made passionate and eloquent addresses to their 
armies on the eve of battle. Their example has been fol- 
lowed by military leaders in all countries and all times, from 
the chief of a petty tribe of savage warriors to the great 
captain of an innumerable host. 

It was under the electric influence of patriotic eloquence 
that our countless battalions were gathered and marched to 
the field; and some of our most brilliant successes in this 
war have followed such appeals. Fired by the zeal thus 
awakened, nearly all victories against fearful odds have every- 
where been won. The fiery words of Peter the Hermit 
set all Europe in a blaze, and launched a million Crusaders 
t)n the shores of Asia. 

Who has forgotten the thrilling scene which Scott de- 
scribes of the sermon of the youthful Scotch chaplain, 
Mackelbriar, when the small but determined band of Cove- 
nanters halted, with their dripping swords, to withstand the 
next shock of Claverhouse's cavalry ! * 

* " The banner of the Reformation is spread abroad on the mountains in 
its first loveliness, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 



OF THE REBELLION. 45 

Returned prisoners tell us tliat, before going into battle, 
:he rebel officers address their men in strains of jfiery invec- 
:ive against the Federal Government, charging it with every 
3rime, and depicting scenes, attending their march, of but- 
3hery and brutality horrible enough to make a savage shudder. 

The voice of the skilful and impetuous orator is often as 
powerful in a bad cause as in a good one. Nothing more 
imposing can be found in Milton — that most eloquent of all 
wrriters — than the addresses of Satan to his scathed, defiant 
secession host. They exceed in sublimity of diction even the 
ploquence of the orators of heaven. 

The effect of eloquence is not to be measured by the 
strength of the argument or the justice of the cause. 
Logic is bad, but competent hands can easily dispose of 
truth. Rhetoric deals only with conclusions. Conviction is 
its sole object. This is as often won by foul as by fair means. 

This great lever of social power has been wielded with 

"Well is he this day that shall barter his house for a helmet, and sell 
his garment for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children of the cove- 
nant, even to the fulfilling of the promise ; and woe, woe unto him who 
for carnal ends and self-seeking shall withhold himself from the great 
work, for the curse shall abide with him, even the bitter curse of Meroz, 
because he came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty ! Up, 
then, and be doing ! The blood of martyrs, reeking upon scaffolds, is 
crying for vengeance ! The bones of saints, which lie whitening in the 
highways, are pleading for retribution ! The groans of innocent captives 
from desolate isles of the sea, and from the dungeons of the tyrant's high 
places, cry for deliverance ! The prayers of persecuted Christians, shel- 
tering themselves in dens and deserts from the sword of their persecutors, 
famished with hunger, starving with cold, lacking fire, food, shelter, and 
clothing, because they serve God rather than man, all are with you, plead- 
ing, watching, knocking, storming the gates of heaven in your behalf! 
Heaven itself shall fight for j'ou, as the stars in their courses fought 
against Sisera ! Then whoso will deserve immortal fame in this world, 
and eternal happiness in that which is to come, let them enter into God's 
service, and take arles at the hand of his servant, — a blessing, namely, 
upon him and his household and his children to the ninth generation, 
even the blessing of the promise, for ever and ever. Amen."— Old Mor- 
tality. 



46 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

matchless ability and effect by Soutbern commanders. They j 
did not rely only upon " general orders'' read to the troops 
Every officer threw a fresh firebrand into the centre of hisb 
regiment before the order ^' March!'' was given. The in 
fluence thus exerted by stirring speakers over ignorant and-^ 
deluded men acted like a spell of enchantment. . 

Union officers who were long detained as prisoners in thefe 
South have told me that to this cause, in great part, could thefe 
fanatical zeal of the Confederate army be attributed. 

With us, nearly all this has been lacking; and we have' 
paid very dear for it. It has been a costly sin of omission. . 

In the beginning, this system was proposed by several of 
our best officers, and it seemed likely to be carried out. Butji 
it is said that it met with great disfavor from certain quar-p 
ters, especially from officers in the regular service. In this|» 
respect, as in some others, many of these officers were not soj) 
completely qualified for the business of a great war as theyjr 
supposed. West Point had done for them all and perhapsB 
more than could any other military school.* But those who» 
had seen active service had generally had but a few men iuk 
their commands; and those men were mostly foreigners, ofji 
the lowest rank in society. j| 

When the Army of the People took the field, inferiority? 
of breeding or social position found no place. The rank and) 
file rose even above mediocrity ; and many of the regimentsjj 
counted privates who in all but military knowledge and expe-ji 
rience were not a whit behind the commanders of the regulari 
army. j' 

It is worth inquiring how much may have been gained err 
lost by the spirit which regular officers have manifested! 

* People wlio know notliing about West Point are in the habit of speak- - 
ing disparagingly of our national military academy. But no foreign offi- - 
cer of distinction has taken any such view of the case. Their united 1 
testimony — from Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France — places the sys- ■ 
tern of military education at West Point on a par with, and some superior 1 
tO; the best military schools in tho world. ,\ 



OF THE REBELLION. 47 

towards citizen soldiers. I know that all men educated as a 
special and privileged class feel a pride in their profession. 
If thej did not, they would disgrace it. Nor is it difficult to 
imagine that an officer of regulars may feel something of a 
twinge when " ranked'' by a volunteer who was brought up 
to wield the goose of a tailor, or mix liquors behind a bar in 
the Bowery, But the least intelligent regular must not for- 
get that some of Napoleon's greatest marshals were stable- 
bo3'S and tapsters. 

A noble attempt in the right direction was made by Colonel 
(now General) John Cochrane early in the war. At a review 
of his splendid regiment, the First United States Chasseurs, 
in the presence of the Secretary of War, he delivered an ora- 
tion on the leading issues of the national contest worthy of 
his great reputation as a polished and powerful speaker. 
Short as was his address, he swept the whole field, and 
pressed his unanswerable argument home to the heart of 
each one of his thousand men. What had never before 
been thought of was brought up to full view; what had 
been obscure became clear; what had been doubtful was 
made certain ; and the merits of the national cause, and the 
certainty of its final triumph, were the themes of the speak- 
er's discourse and illumination. On one subject General 
Cochrane spoke with great boldness. His eye had pierced 
much further into the future than the policy of the adminis- 
tration or the popular vision had penetrated. He saw clearly 
then, what time has made so apparent, that either slaverij or 
the Union must die.^ 

* He says : — 

* * eif iS « » 5jr # » 

"Soldiers, to wliat means shall we resort for our existence? This war 
is devoted not merely to victory and its mighty honors, not merely to the 
triumph which moves in glorious procession along our streets. But it is 
a war which moves towards the protection of our homes, the safety of our 
families, the continuation of our domestic altars, and the protection of 
our firesides. In such a war we are ju?t"ied, are bound to resort to every 



48 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

The issue had been made. The insurrectionists had made 
it. It came; and it was made and met. A country was at 



force within our power. Having opened the port of Beaufort, we shall be 
able to export millions of cotton-bales, and from these we may supply the 
sinews of war. Do you say that we should not seize the cotton ? No : 
you are clear upon that point. Suppose the munitions of war are within 
our reach : would we not be guilty of shameful neglect if we availed not 
ourselves of the opportunity to use them ? Suppose the enemy's slaves 
were arrayed against you : would you, from any squeamishness, refrain 
from pointing against them the hostile gun and prostrating them in 
death? No: that is your object and purport; and if you would seize 
their property, open their ports, and even destroy their lives, I ask you 
whether you would not use their slaves ? Whether you would not arm 
their slaves [great applause], and carry them in battalions against their 
masters ? [Renewed and tumultuous applause.] If necessary to save this 
Government, I would jilnnge their lohole country, black and white, into one 
indiscriminate sea of blood, so that we should in the end have a Govern- 
ment which would be the vicegerent of God. Let us have no more of 
this dilletante system, but let us work with a will and a purpose that can- 
not be mistaken. Let us not put aside from too great a delicacy of 
motives. Soldiers, you know no such reasoning as this. You have arms 
in your hands, and those arms are placed there for the purpose of exter- 
minating an enemy unless he submits to law, order, and the Constitution. 
If he loill not submit, exjylode every thing that comes in your way. Set fire 
to the cotton. Explode the cotton. Take property wherever you may find it. 
Take the slave, and bestow him upon the non-slaveholder, if you please. { 
[Great applause.] Do to them as they icould do to us. liaise up a party ) 
of interest against the absent slaveholder, distract their counsels; and, if ' 
this shoidd not be sufficient, take the slave by the hand, place a musket in it^ , 
and in God's name bid him strike for the liberty of the human race. [Im- 
mense applause.] 

*'But, soldiers, to accomplish all this, not merely arms are necessary,, 
not merely men to carry them, but that powerful and overwhelming spirit t 
which constitutes and makes us men, — that spirit which lifts us above thei; 
creeping things of the earth, and brings us near the Deity, in accomplish- - 
ing his work on earth. Oh, then, let us not think that the ' battle is to i 
the strong ;' let us not merely depend on discipline and order, but, with i 
that fervidness of soul which inspired our fathers at Bunker Hill and 
Saratoga and Yorktown, come forward and give effect to all that is valu- 
able in the name of patriotism and honor and religion. 

<< Never — no, never — will you succeed until that spirit is once more 



OF THE REBELLION. 49 

stake, — and a whole country. It was no trifle we liad to con- 
tend for. It was not only an empire, — it was the hopes of the 
icorld. If we failed, where could the wet and tired dove of 
human hope find shelter with her good news? 

We must have something to repose on, — something to hope 
in. Where can we go if we slip our anchor now ? 

Is there any thing else that is safe ? 

manifested and developed which actuated the soldiers of Cromwell, who, 
on the field, invoked the Lord their God to arise. So let it be with us. 
We must be at least one with Him in spirit. Let us, like Cromwell, 
invoke the Almighty's blessing, and, clothed with the panoply of patriot- 
ism and religion, strike for our homes and our country. [Immense cheer- 
ing.] Let us, — oh, let us, — without reference to any differences of the 
past, keep our eyes steadfastly on the great object to be achieved, — the 
nationality and independence of this country, the salvation of civilization 
from the insults and assaults of barbarism ; and then, but not till then, 
will you be Avorthy to be recognized as a distinguished portion of our 
great American army." [Long-continued cheering from the whole regi- 
ment.] 



50 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



IX. 

Statesmen and Eventi 

Men strut everywhere, — most of all in the front of em 
pires. Real statesmen keep themselves out of sight; sliaiTo 
statesmen always parade themselves. 

"France! ma belle France!" 

But only now and then, and far between, Richelieu appears. 

How many quack doctors have had ready-made prescrip- 
tions for our national and international troubles ! Yes, reme-, 
dies that would cure antj complaint ! They would do just as 
well for one disease as another. It might be a constipation 
of the bowels in a young gentleman two weeks old, or a col- 
lision of empires. Liver, kidney, lights, smelts, sweet-breads 
or kingdoms, — "all the same, sir: only three dollars a dozen 

This trash abounds everywhere. Most of all does thisj;| 
rubbish collect around the halls of statesmanship in this II 
country, where everybody knows every thing. i ; 

Every great statesman keeps a man to sweep ail such rub-[| 
bish out of his chamber. Everyhodi/ knoics every thing! ij 

How true this is in our blessed and abused country! Ai| 
French gentleman said a good thing the other day. I 

"Why, monsieur! your citizens all know so much, lij 
wonder if they allow your President to know any thing. ^^ j| 

"Monsieur, they don't give him a chance," ; 

" Oui, monsieur. But how the devil does your President i; 
do any thing?" '; 

" I'll tell you, monsieur. Our President does hi? duty. \\ 
He is clothed by the Constitution with just as much authority 
as he needs to execute the laws." 



OF THE REBELLION. 51 

"But, monsieur, you make no limit, tlicrij to his authority. 
You have one great tyrant." 

" No, sir ! That is your European way of doing business. 
We find our house in flames, and our babes in bed ! They 
must be saved, and we do it at any and all hazards. Our 
iGovernment was made for our people, and our protector must 
take care of them. That protector must have, and does have, 
all the power he needs for the work. You talk dhout provost- 
ma yslialsliip^ and call it despotic. You are right: it is. 
God uses it. He is the Provost-Marshal of the Universe. 
But he assumes no extremer prerogative in any case than the 
Chief of the New York Fire Department, who blows up one 
building to save a city. 

" Power must be put forth. Somebody must have it. Joan 
of Arc might not have stood a very good chance of an elec- 
tion if she had gone to the polls. But this did not stop her 
[from having her name known forever as the Maid of Orleans. 
So with your emperor. He found France floating helplessly 
in the surging sea of a social Deluge. He laid his strong 
arm on the helm and brought the ship to ! The 1st of De- 
cember, France was worthless. The next day she became an 
empire. The coup cVetat fell like a bolt from heaven. But 
you are proud of your nation's history from that memorable 
2d of December." 

" Yes, oh, yes, monsieur. But you ^violate all your tra- 
ditional constitution." 

" No, sir ', not for a second ! In France I know you have 
no constitution. You may get up one every few years, but 
with the first emeute in Paris down it goes, and you scream 
out, from the Hotel de Ville, 'Vive la Republique !' and 
when your Lamartine republic has had its day, a day sancti- 
fied by the best blood of Paris and illuminated by the sun- 
light and the starlight of the finest genius of your noble 
country, — after all, you have to come to the centre, the home 



52 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

of all Frenchmen and all men, — confidence in tlie government, 
faith in power. 

"You have had to do that often in Paris; and Paris is 
France, and France now is Napoleon. Let him slip, let him 
blunder, — one mistake, one divorce of Josephine, one more silly 
attempt to conquer the unconquerable Russians, — and you will 
find in your transient ruins some dead honors to sleep on. 

" But, my dear sir, do me one favor. Don't, please don't 
tell me that we have not made provision for all our troubles. 
In France you have to do any thing to get out of a scrape. 
Our constitution does not die. We need no coups cVetat 
These difficulties are all provided for. Our President has all 
the executive authority of the nation vested in himself. When 
he fails in his duty, then, and not till then, we have a revo- 
lution." 

" But you have one very great revolution now.'' 

" Sir, here you make a mistake. It is not a revolution. " It 
is only an insurrection. It is simply a family quarrel, in 
which your nation has not yet been invited to intervene or 
interfere. We have some linen (that needs washing, to be 
sure) which we intend to put through a straight, clear-starch 
process ] and we should like to get over our little domestic 
affairs, if we can, without being troubled." 

" Well, but Governor Seymour tells me that the President 
takes too much authority on him." 

" Well, sir, I think Governor Seymour has made a very 
great mistake." 

" But do you not think Governor Seymour was elected by 
your New York people?" 

" Undoubtedly." 

"Well, he is the law?" 

"No! the man is not yet born who is the law for America. 
We keep legislators to make our laws." 

"Well, what shall his Excellency Governor Seymour do?" 

" Just what I think he is determined to do." 



OF THE REBELLION. 53 

^^Wliatis tliat?" 

"Stand by the flag, the Government, the war, till the last 
onemy is put under our feet," 

" If he does not do that ?" 

'' Then let him look out for breakers V 

" What you say? Breakers?" 

" I mean this. If Governor Seymour tries to turn this tide 
against the war or the Government, he will be swept away like 
shavings in the wind." 

" AVell, then, you think your good and great Government 
will be permanent?'' 

" No, sir, — eternal! The world seems to have nothing to do 
with itself just now but to look after our affairs. I have 
sometimes thought that it was ' love's labor lost.' But it is 
quite possible you may have work enough at home to occupy 
you." 

" Why ? We are very quiet in Europe, particularly in 
France." 

" You are just now. But within my time I have seen seve- 
ral revolutions in France. In 1830 you exiled Charles X., 
the first gentleman in your country, when you should have 
hanged his ministers. In '48 you sent a mob of women, 
gathered from the purlieus of Paris and drunk with rum, to 
drive Louis Philippe, the prince of your own choice, from 
his bed at Versailles; and ^qm set him afloat in a fishing- 
smack on the British Channel. Again, you chose Lamartine, 
and turned your backs on him. Again, Cavaignac; but you 
did not like his soldierly conduct. Then you elected Louis 
Napoleon, — for which I forgive you. It is the best thing you 
have ever done since the time you allowed the despotisms of 
Europe to chain up your eagle on the rock of St. Helena." 

" Yes J he was our Prometheus." 

" Well said. You will not complain that you have a master 
nowr' 

" 0, vive Napoleon !" 

5-» 



54 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

" Very well. So I say. He is the only Frencliman who 
can rule France/^ 

'^ You — you — monsieur — what do you with your constitu- 
tion f 

" We abide by it. It answers all our purposes. It has not 
yet been violated in a letter, least of all in its spirit." 

" Do you expect to endure ?" 

" We do. Not a shadow of trouble on that score flits over 
the heart of a well-informed citizen ', not a tremor of hesita- 
tion has yet chilled the pulse of our fighting people. This is 
only the first episode in our history, of which your annals are 
so full, in which a nation wakes up to look after itself" 

" I know France has had some very severe revolutions." 

" How long did it take for France to bring the coronet of 
Burgundy to Paris ? How long for England to subjugate 
Wales or Ireland? how long to bring Scotland to her throne? 
How long will it take to keep kingdoms together, if you 
preach and predict the untimely death of this republic?" 

" Well, I think, if you can keep up now, you will do al- 
most an impossihility.'^ 

" Well, sir, I think we can do it, with or without the sym- 
pathy of European Grovernments. If we have that sympathy, 
we shall be glad. If not, we will try and shift for ourselves." 

" What do you mean by the word shift?'' 

" I mean we will try to manage so that we shall take care 
of ourselves." 

" Oui, monsieur ! Now I understand. You think you can 
get on without any help from Europe?" 

"I do, most emphatically; and, if we could not, it is very 
doubtful if you could give it to us. You will have your 
hands full at home." 



or THE REBELLION. 55 



X. 

A Hero Soldier neither in the Eank nor File. 

When the martial and patriotic fires began to blaze along 
the hill-tops of Western New York, and our young men were 
rushing by tens of thousands to join the national standard, 
one brave fellow who seized the torch with the wildest enthu- 
siasm, and worked hardest in the cause, found it impossible 
to get his name enrolled with the company of his own town, 

Bloomfield. 

All his companions passed examination. When the surgeon 
came to B. F. Surby, he found that he had a stiff knee, 
caused by the kick of a horse while he was a boy; and he 
was rejected. 

He could run as fast, mount a horse as quick, play as good 
a game of ball, and shoot as well as any one of his comrades, 
— better, it was acknowledged, than most. He was athletic, 
lithe, hard, spry, and made for action and daring. He was 
twenty-five years old, and all ready to fight. But, with all 
this, he could not goj he was, however, determined to go, and 
no surgeon or recruiting-officer could stop him. 

When the company marched to Canandaigua, he went with 
them to join the regiment. He put in his pocket all the money 
he could scrape together, and paid his own way as long as it 
lasted; and, when it gave out, partly by the help of his com- 
panions and partly by eking out in mother-wit what he 
lacked in cash, he reached the head-quarters of General 
King, where, his name not appearing on the roll, he was 
asked to give an account of himself 
• What follows is in his own words, as I took them down 



56 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

while he lay wounded in the Douglas Hospital last December. 
The incidents are well known to many officers and soldiers iu 
the cor2:)S in which he served. But the peculiarly naive 
manner in which he told the story, the total lack of all osten- 
tation or egotism, and, above all, his perfect self-control and 
even cheerfulness under the pain of a severe wound in the 
left leg, and a compound fracture in the arm, which he was 
waiting for the surgeon to amputate, made it one of the most 
interesting cases I have seen. 

"Once beyond the Potomac, I'd be blazed if I wouldn't 
have a chance. So I tried the old Bloomfield game over; 
but it was no go: I could not put on the uniform of a soldier; 
I could not have a gun to kill rebels. But I was bound to 
fetch it, some way or other. I finally got my case before 
General King, and he got an officer of his staff to take me as 
his orderly : so I had my way at last, and once in the army 
(if I did get in at the back door) I could go along, and ride 
a good horse into the bargain. That finished the stiff knee 
business, which had bothered the Bloomfield surgeon. So 
I thanked the stars for my good luck, and waited for the first 
battle. 

"This was in a recounoissance in force towards Orange 
Court-House, where we had some nice amusement, — ^just 
enough to stir up the blood of green Western New York boys. 

"But nothing very serious happened till the battle of South 
Mountain, which began to look like war as I had read of it 
in the histories of great generals. Of course you know all 
about that battle. 

5|< :jt ^ ^ ^ >{j 

"But then came some bad luck. I'd been thinking all 
the time it was too good to last. The officer I was serving 
got sick after the battle of Cedar Mountain, and had to come 
on to Washington. Of course I had to come too; and here I 
remained waiting on him several weeks. In the mean time I 
lost all chance to be in the battles of Gainesville and Bull Bun. 



I. 



OF THE REBELLION. 57 

"When my commander got better, but not well enougli to 
take the field, he sent me over to look after his horses, and, 
knowing my anxiety to be with the brigade, he gave me per- 
mission to join it, and the use of his horse. 

"I lost no time in doing that. I got in the staff again, and 
began to feel at home. General King had fallen sick, and 
was succeeded by General Hatch. We were in the splendid 
battle of South Mountain, where I had 07ie of the great c7a?/s, 
^orth more than all my life before. Oh, how glorious the 
JDld flag looked every time the smoke rolled off and we saw her 
still streaming ! 

" In the heat of this bloody engagement, when our men were 
ighting Just right, the general was wounded, and, being near 
bim at the moment, I had the sad satisfaction of helping to 
arry him from the field.'' 

"But," I inquired, "as you seem to have been where the 
shot flew thick, had you not met with any mishap so far?" 

"Nary a scratch, — nor the captain's horse." 

"Well, what came next?" 

"The grand and blood-red field of Antietam, all of which 
I saw; and I never expect to see abetter one; — nor do I want 
to. That was no boys^ play." 

At this point Doctor Pineo, the accomplished surgeon of 
the hospital, came up to see how his "hero-patient" was 
getting along. After examining his leg, he pronounced it doing 
well enough. "That will give you no more trouble. But I 
am inclined to think I shall have to take this arm off." 

" You are welcome to it, doctor. I think it has done me 
about all the good it ever will." 

"Well, I will see you again during the day." And, at a hint 
from the doctor, I rose and walked with him down the ward, 
looking through his clear, experienced eyes at many interest- 
ing cases under his surgical treatment. Like all men of 
true science, and especially all masters of the healing art, he 
looked after his half a thousand suffering patients with the 



58 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

tenderest solicitude. But lie seemed to regard Surby witli a 
peculiar interest. 

"He is a real hero," lie said. "I must take that arm off 
in the morning; and I wish you would come up. He will 
mind it no more than the sting of a mosquito. He is always 
cheerful, — always happy.'' 

* ^ ;K ^ >}- * 

" Well, now for Antietam," I said, as I once more took a 
chair by his side. 

" General Doubleday took command of us there, in place 
of the wounded General Hatch. In forming his division 
the night before the battle, while the general and his staff 
were riding along through the lines, a rebel battery opened 
on us with shot and shell. A soldier was standing about two 
rods in front of me. A small shell took his head clean off, 
and struck my horse in the side, just behind my leg, cutting 
the girths, and exploding inside the horse. I only remember 
the fire flew pretty thick, and, after in some way getting up 
into the air higher than I was before, I next found myself on 
the ground among some of the pieces of the horse. 

" The first thought was, 'There goes the captain's horse, and- 
I'm left to foot it !' A somewhat sudden falling back took place, 
and I started. ' But, by Jove, I won't lose that saddle !' and back 
I put to get it. While I was working away as fast as I could, 
the general rode by, and, seeing what I was doing, sung out, — 

" ' Quit that, fool, if you care any thing about your life !' 
and, as I found it rather difl&cult to untangle the saddle, I 
concluded to leave with what traps I had, and return after 
dark. I did ] but it was too late. 

" I felt bad. ' What will the captain say ? I've lost his horse 
and saddle, and God knows what. Well, I'll see what I can 
do; I haven't lost my small arms, at any rate; and perhaps I 
can manage to get another horse before the battle opens in the 



} ;; 



"Not hurt yourself?" 



OF THE REBELLION. 59 

"Nary a bruise. But I was pretty well spattered up with 
blood, I remember. So tbat night, after looking round, and 
not getting my eye on a horse, I lay down under a fence near 
our right wing, and thought I would take a nap. But I cared 
more for a good horse than a good sleep. As luck would have 
it, I heard, pretty soon, some horses coming down pretty fast. 
They had evidently broken loose. I sprung for the first one, 
and missed him. The next was a few rods behind. ' Now,' says 
I to myself, 4s your last chance;' and it was, for there were 
only two. I struck for him, and caught him by the bridle- 
rein. It was light enough to see, and I soon found out I had 
got a good horse for the captain. I brought him up to the 
fence and lay down, being pretty well satisfied that what 
further running that animal did that night he would have to 
do with me on his back." 

"Whom did the horse belong to?" 

"He belonged to me." 

"Where had he come from?" 

"Upon my soul, I forgot to inquire." 

" The next morning all was astir, for a battle which had yet 
no name. But everybody was well enough satisfied that a 
great fight was coming. It was plain as sunrise that McClellan 
meant to fight, and that every man in the great army of the 
Potomac knew it, and was ready to do his duty. 

"There was a diff"erent feeling' amono- the men and officers 

o o 

the night before, and that morning, from what I had seen 
before any other battle. Each man knew that defeat that day in- 
volved the fall of Washington. But not a doubt of McClellan's 
generalship or our success entered the mind of a single 
soldier. So completely had the commander-in-chief won the 
hearts of every corjjs, that the whole army and he were one 
man at Antietam. Many troops were there to fight under him 
for the first time ; but the moment they rubbed against Mac's 
old campaigners they melted right in, and the whole body 
was one army. 



60 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

****** 

"So passed tliat wonderful day. When I hitched up at 
night, and got my blanket ofif the saddle-bow and unrolled it 
to go to sleep, I found two Minie balls snugly imbedded 
near the centre of the hard roll. — ' Thank you, gentlemen : you 
fired a shade too low.' So I came off safe enough there, and, 
when I did think of it, I made up my mind I was not born to 
be shot.'' 

"Your new horse behaved well?" 

" Finely, and I got very much attached to him. But, poor 
fellow I I had to kill him to save myself. I was fond of riding 
about inside our lines, and sometimes beyond them. I knew 
it was rather a risky business ; but I did it, part of the time 
as a volunteer scout, and at other times on my own hook, and 
was not sorry for it, for I now and then got information which 
may have been worth something. 

" I generally managed to get along without any particular 
trouble, and with many a good run managed to get home 
safe. But one night I got into a scrape. 

" I knew that two or three mounted men were near the enemy's 
picket-lines, and, thinking it might pay, I started about mid- 
night, and rode in a circuitous way to get near enough to re- 
connoitre from a quarter where I should not be suspected. I 
saw a very fine horse tied up to a tree, and I wanted that horse. 
I came very near succeeding. But I was suddenly notified 
by a ball whistling by my head that I was discovered. I put 
out, and, finding my horse, put spurs to. Whistle, whizz, whizz, 
whistle, the balls flew by. It was a close pursuit, and a hard, 
long run. I passed our lines safe. But it was too much. My 
horse never was worth much after that. I felt bad about it, 
for the poor fellow had saved my life more than once. But 
I had taken good care of him, and, after all, what did it matter ? 
It was all in the cruise. 

" Finally, the army was before Fredericksburg. During a 
part of that fight we were troubled by the enemy's sharp-shooters. 



OF THE REBELLION. 61 

They were picking off our officers and best artillerists, from a 
very long range. I saw how the thing was working, and I 
managed to get into an old deserted house (in which Wash- 
ington is said to have spent some time when young) which 
could stand a pretty heavy shot. 

"I had a splendid rifle, and plenty of ammunition. It was 
a fine cover, and I used it to some advantage. A large open 
window looked out just in the direction I wanted, and as fast 
as I loaded I slyly took a look out, picked my man, and blazed 
away. I did not stay at the window any unnecessary length 
of time, for generally a bullet came whistling through the hole 
a second or two after my flash. 

"Heavier shot at last began to strike; and then, after I had 
fired, I slid round behind a solid stone chimney standing near 
the centre of the house. I kept this up for a considerable 
time, till an accident happened. 

" As I was approaching the window for another fire, a shell 
came through the side of the house, and burst about three feet 
over my head. Down I went, of course, and began to survey 
the damage. One piece had struck my left arm, making a 
compound fracture below the elbow; another piece had struck 
my left leg, just above the knee. 

" I thought now, as I had done a pretty good day's work, I 
would contrive in some way to haul ofi" for repairs and get 
among my friends. Some of the men at a battery not far off 
had heard the shell explode in the house where they knew I was 
firing, and, discovering me, carried me off to the hospital quar- 
ters, where after a while my arm was tinkered up in a hurry, my 
leg was dressed, and I lay down and ate my supper, for I was 
as hungry as a wolf. 

" ''■ Well, old boy,' said I to myself, ^you have had your way : 
you determined to come to the war, and you did. Now look 
at yourself, and see how you like it.' 

" I did look at myself I didn't look very handsome, it's 



02 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

true; but I looked well enough for all j^ractical purposes^ — 
and \felt still better. 

^^ Being of no particular use down at Falmouth, they sent 
me up here, where I arrived the other day. The doctor down 
at Fredericksburg botched my fractures, and, between jolting 
about and one thing and another, I must have the arm taken 
off now; but, as my leg is nearly well, I shall be about again, 
almost as good as new, in a few days." 

The next morning, after inhaling ether, he was taken into 
the amputating-room, when Dr. Piueo performed one of his 
beautiful operations. The arm was taken off three or four 
inches below the elbow, and dressed, when Surby was returned 
to his cot. The attendants said he was not out of bed over 
five minutes. 

Of course he got on finely, and in a few days he was 
walking around town to return the calls of friends who had 
visited him in the hospital. 

But what was he to do now ? His name did not appear on 
the rolls of the army; he had never been mustered into the 
service; in fact, the Government knew no such man as a 
soldier. Generals King, Hatch, and Doubleday, and a large 
number of officers besides, knew him, but only as a volunteer 
independent scout. They knew the deeds of valor, and the 
difficult and important services, he had performed, — services 
which if rendered by a private regularly mustered into the 
army would have early given him a commission. Now he 
was to leave the hospital, with one arm the less, no money in 
his pocket, and only the shoddiest style of clothes on his 
back, to get to his home the best way he could. 

He was certainly in a most anomalous position. But he 
had friends enough, — more than he needed ; for he could 
make his own way. 

Some of his former commanders caused the facts to be 
made known to the War Department; and every thing that 
was right and proper was done, and with a promptness, fair- 



OF THE REBELLION. 63 

ness, and despatch which had seklom, if over, characterized 
that Department hefore its present administration. Surby 
was at once mustered into his regiment, to take effect from the 
day his company marched out of their native Bloomfield. 
This gave him pay for the whole time, allowance for clothing 
he had never drawn, one hundred dollars bounty money, a 
new patent arm that looks just like its mate, an honorable 
discharge from the army of the United States, and an annual 
pension of ninety-six dollars for life. Here's a chance for some 
bonnie lassie to win tlie handsome scout of tlie Potomac.'^ 

*In a letter dated Washington, Marcli 22, 1863, he says : — 

"C. Edwards Lester, Esq. 

"Dear Sir: — I have finally conquered. I am now an enlisted man. 
Through the kindness of Generals King and Doubleday, and (my) 
Captain Dennis, I have been mustered into the United States service, 
to date from December 26, 1861. Too much praise cannot be given 
to Captain Dennis for his untiring efforts in my behalf, in procuring 
an order from the Secretary of War to have me mustered into the ser- 
vice and receive my pay, bounty, and pension. I wish, also, to mention 
Surgeon Pineo as one of my warmest friends, with Major Breck, who has 
taken a great interest in my case. The kindness of General Doubleday 
and staff will never be forgotten. I hope always to prove myself worthy 
of their esteem. I feel that I have done my duty to my country, and 
gome little good to the cause for which we are shedding our blood. 
^* Yours, faithfully, 

'• B. F. Surby, 

"Douglas Hospital." 



64 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XI. 

Our Foreign Eelations,— such as they are,— such as they may be. 

Sometimes it is as true with nations as with individuals that 
an age is crowded into an hour, — that the flash of a sabre may 
do in a second what a whole generation has waited for, — that 
exhausted patience among men and governments may assume 
the prerogatives of the Almighty, and let the bolt and the flash 
come together. But beware where the bolt strikes. 

This has had a full application in our recent experience at 
home. We found our enemies had become those of our own 
household. They attempted to break up our Grovernment, 
to overthrow our Union, to destroy our prosperity, and wind 
up our history as a first-class Power. The Crovernment of the 
United States had never deviated from the accomplishment 
of its legitimate objects. It was made for all, and it had pro- 
tected all. No State could claim that it had been wronged in 
any measure, without instantly having its wrong adjusted by 
the supreme legislative, judicial, or executive power. 

And thus, without any infraction of law or any invasion 
of prerogative, one section of the country was arrayed in hos- 
tility against the other; and suddenly we found ourselves 
threatened with the choice of two evils, — a struggle to the 
death, if necessary, against dismemberment, if not indeed 
against total destruction, or to submit tamely to inevitable 
ruin. 

This was a new spectacle for the nations of Europe to look 
on ; and, as might be expected, it gave them a good chance for 
showing how truly they had rejoiced in our prosperity or how 
glad they would be in our misfortune. 



OF THE REBELLION. 65 

Russia, — by all odds tlie grandest of all European struc- 
tures, — without waiting an hour for consultation with other 
Powers, sent back her assurances of sympathy wath us in 
our efforts to frustrate this treasonable attempt to break up 
a free and prosperous Government, which had proved so 
powerful and beneficent a shield for the protection of all 
its people. 

Russia is the natural ally of the United States. She has a 
vast territory, and all her people look to her for protection. 
She has, during a thousand years, been slowly but surely 
emerging from Asiatic barbarism into the light and strength 
of modern civilization. She has, moreover, done what few 
other nations have done: she has carried the masses of her 
people along with her as fast as she has travelled herself. 

Oriental in her origin, she has maintained a patriarchal 
government. If it has ever been a despotism in form, it 
was manifestly the only machinery strong enough to govern^ 
protect, and bless all her people. 

She undertook a work far more difficult than Rome had to 
do. She had to aggregate, harmonize, and blend together the 
great nomadic tribes of the East. When from the affluent so- 
cial systems of Asia, bursting with crowded populations, they 
drifted westward on her now European territories, Russia was 
submerged by wild, strange, and savage races. She had the 
most stu23endous task given to her which any nation has ever 
had to perform. Contending with difficulties which had never 
before been encountered, she has at last presented to the 
world the wonderful spectacle of a mighty empire made up 
of countless dissevered and warring communities, all ferocious, 
all untamed, all nomadic, all speaking different tongues, and 
representing all the religious superstitions of the East, but 
now all blended in a homogeneous social and political system, 
which has not only eclipsed, in the culture of its upper classes, 
the refinement of European courts, and matched them in the 
arts of war and peace, but has boldly struck the shackles of 



66 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

slavery from the limbs of as many million men as now make 
up the population of all our free States. ^' 

-=■ A THOUSAND YEARS. 

A thousand years, through storm and fire, 

With varying fate, the work has grown, 
Till Alexander crowns the spire 

Where Eurik laid the corner-stone. 
The chieftain's sword that could not rust. 

But bright in constant battle gretv, 
Kaised to the world a throne august, — 

A nation grander than he knew. 
Nor he alone; but those who have, 

Through faith or deed, an equal i^art, — 
The subtle brain of Yaroslav, 

Vladimir's arm, and Nikon's heart, — 
The later hands that built so well 

The work sublime which these began. 
And up from base to pinnacle 

Wrought out the Empire's mighty plan,— 
All these to-day are crown'd anew. 

And rule in splendor where they trod. 
While Russia's children throng to view 

Her holy cradle, Novgorod, — 
From Volga's banks, from Dwina's side. 

From pine-clad Ural, dark and long, 
Or where the foaming Terek's tide 

Leaps down from Kasbek, bright with song. 
From Altai's chain of mountain-cones, 

Mongolian deserts far and free. 
And lands that bind, through changing zones, 

The Eastern and the Western Sea. 
To every race she gives a home, 

And creeds and laws enjoy her shade. 
Till far beyond the dreams of Rome 

Her Cgesar's mandate is obey'd. 
She blends the virtues they impart. 

And holds within her life combined 
The patient faith of Asia's heart, 

The force of Europe's restless mind. 



OF THE REBELLION, 67 

That involuntary servitude sliould be abolished by the 
most despotic of nations, with the applause of the world, and 
the day of emancipation (March 3, 1863) be ushered in by 
chimes of gratitude and thanksgiving from every church-spire 
in the Russian Empire, while the great Republic of the world 
still binds the fetters upon four million slaves, will hereafter 
read strangely in history. 

But a wiser and broader statesmanship than ours guides the 
destinies of Russia. 

It was from such a nation that the earliest words of sym- 
pathy and confidence came when our first domestic troubles 
began ; and it will not be forgotten hereafter by the Ameri- 

She bids the nomad's wandering cease 

She binds the wild marauder fast; 
Her ploughshares turn to homes of peace 

The battle-fields of ages past. 

And, nobler far, she dares to know 

Her future's task, — nor knows in vain, 
But strikes at once the generous blow 

That makes her millions men again ! 

So, firmer based, her power expands, 

Nor yet has seen its crowning hour, 
Still teaching to the struggling lands 

That Peace the offspring is of Power. 

Build up the storied bronze, to tell 

The steps whereby this height she trod, — 

The thousand years that chronicle 
The toil of Man, the help of God! 

And may the thousand years to come — 

The future ages, wise and free — 
Still see her flag and hear her drum 

Across the world, from sea to sea, — 

Still find, a symbol stern and grand, 

Her ancient eagle's strength unshorn, 
One head to watch the western land 

And one to guard the land of morn ! 

Bayaud Taylor. 

NovaoROD, Russia, Sept. 20, 1862. 



68 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

can people wlien this tempest lias swept by us. We see new 
storms gathering over Europe, and our aid may be invoked 
against Russia, and invoked in vain. Statesmen know that, 
while individuals may forgive, nations never do. 

^ ^ ^ ^ :^ * 

HOW HAS ENGLAND LOOKED ON THIS CONTEST? 

Strange enough has been the course she has taken. She 
will hardly be able hereafter to explain it to others: it is 
doubtful if she can do it now even to herself. 

England lives in America to-day, and is dying at home. 

England is clinging to her sepulchres, — and she may well 
do it; for the places where her great ones repose are the 
greenest spots on her island. 

We Americans cheated ourselves most egregiously when we 
thought England — once the head of the slave-trade, and only 
a few years ago the front of the abolitionism of the world — 
would turn her slavery-hating back on the only organized band 
of slavery propagandism on the earth ! 

Poor fools we ! Just as though the British aristocracy 
(the true name for the British Government^ meant any thing 
but interference and trouble for us when her Grace the 
Duchess of Sutherland chaperoned the gifted Harriet Beecher 
Stowe through the court of her Majesty, simply because Mrs. 
Stowe, by writing a great dramatic novel against slavery, could 
be made a cat's-paw to pull the chestnuts of the British aris- 
tocracy out of the fire ! 

Yes, abolitionism suited the purposes of the British aris- 
tocracy just tlien ; and lords and ladies swarmed at negro- 
emancipation gatherings at Exeter Hall. On all such oc- 
casions three standing jokes were played off, to the infinite 
amusement of dukes and duchesses, — duchesses more par- 
ticularly. 

First, there must be a live American negro, — the blacker the 
better, sometimes; but they generally got one as little black as 
possible, and an octoroon threw them into the highest state of 



OF THE REBELLION. 69 

subdued frenzy admissible in tlie upper classes. The aforesaid 
negro must have escaped from the indescribable horrors and 
barbarities of slavery in the Southern States, — gashed, manacled 
(if he showed the manacles, so much the better), — a sample of 
American barbarism, and a burning shame on the otherwise 
fair cheek of the goddess of xVmerican Liberty. 

"Oh, yes,'' said my lord Brougham; "nothing stands in jour 
way now but negro slavery. Abolish that, and every heart 
in England is with you." 

Secondly, at these Exeter Hall meetings they must have a 
live American abolitionist, — once a slaveholder who had eman- 
cipated his slaves. Here they found their man in the noble 
Judge Birney, as in the Jirst they found a splendid specimen 
of a runaway octoroon in Frederick Douglas, Esq., — the black 
Douglas, — and who, by-the-by, made a better speech by far than 
any aristocrat in England. 

Thirdly, and last of all, some ecclesiastic gentleman bestowed 
upon the proceedings the benediction. 

This would have been well enough, — certainly so far as the 
benediction was concerned, — had not future events proved 
beyond a doubt that, at the very moment these curious things 
were occurring, the whole prestige of the British em2:>ire was 
invoked to sanctify and adorn a spirit of hostility to the 
Government of the United States, and that the solemnities of 
our holy religion were also invoked in the same cause. 

But to my unpractised eye it looked at the time very much 
as later events have shown it, — a thorough hatred of America 
by the ruling classes of England. 

At one time Lord Brougham presided; again, O'Conncll; 
and again, the venerable Thomas Clarkson : they even got 
his Royal Highness Prince Albert to do it once, on a some- 
what narrower scale, — where even tender young duchesses 
could attend with impunity (the American negro always being 
present, like Tom Thumb in Barnum's chief amusements), and, 
being fortified with a supply of highly-perfumed kerchiefs, 



70 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

the youug duchesses managed generally to live it through and 
revive after reaching the open air ! 

These farces were played off all through the British Islands; 
and the poor British people — who, from long habit, I suppose, 
go where "their betters" go, when allowed to — ^joined in the 
movement, and "American anti-slavery societies" were every- 
where established. Even chambermaids and factory-girls con- 
tributed to raise a fund to send "English missionaries" over 
here " to enlighten the North about the duty of the South to 
abolish shivery." 

Some of these scenes were sufficiently vulgar; but they 
were sometimes got ujd, in some resj)ects, in fine taste. One 
occasion I recall with the highest pleasure, which, although 
ostensibly an anti-slavery dinner, was limited chiefly in its 
company to the literary men of London. 

Among the good things of that evening was a short poem 
written for the occasion by Wm. Beattie, M.D., the gifted and 
well-known author of "Scotland Illustrated,'' &c. I do not 
know if it has been published. I remember two or three of 
the stanzas. It is an address from " England's Poets to the 
Poets of America." 

Your Garrison has fann'cl the flame, 

Chikl, Chapman, Pierpont, caught the fire, 

And, roused at Freedom's hallow'd name, 
Hark! Bryant, "Whittier, strike the lyre; 

While here hearts myriad trumpet-toned, 

Montgomery, Cowper, Campbell, Moore, 
To Freedom's glorious cause respond, 

In sounds which thrill through every core. 

Their voice has conjured up a power 

No fears can daunt, no foes arrest. 
Which gathers strength with every hour 

And strikes a chord in every breast, — 

A power that soon in every land — 
On Europe's shore, on ocean's flood — 



OF THE REBELLION. 71 

Shall smite the oppi'cssors of mankind 
And blast the traffickers in blood. 

Oh, where should Freedom's hope abide. 

Save in the bosoms of the free? 
Where should the wretched negro hide, 

Save in the shade of Freedom's tree? 

Oh, by those songs your children sing. 

The lays that soothe your winter fires, 
The hopes, the hearths, to which you cling. 

The sacred ashes of your sires, — 

By all the joys that crown the free, — 

Love, honor, fame, the hope of Heaven, — 

Wake in your might, that earth may see 
God's gifts have not been vainly given. 

Bards of Freedom's favor'd land. 

Strike at last your loftiest ke3^. 
Peal the watchword through the land. 

Shout till every slave be free. 

Long has he drain'd the bitter cup, 

Long borne the burden, clank'd the chain; 

But now the strength of Europe's up, — 
A strength that ne'er shall sleep again. 

If I should be challenged on the exactness or accuracy of 
my statements here, I wish to say that I saw many or most 
of the things I speak of, and am j)i"epared to give the proofs 
if challenged; but the English journalism of that summer of 
1840 (eighteen hundred forty) will save me the trouble for 
the present. All England was ablaze about American sla- 
very and its abolition. 

It was a noble enthusiasm among the people ; but it was 
(anybody could see through it, for it was the veriest gauze) 
all an aristocratic sham. It did not mean any thing for human 
freedom. It meant hostility to the United States. li was 
(jot vp hij British jwlitirians. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke 
of Wellington had no part or parcel in it^ unless it were 
through sheer courtesy to the men of their class. 



Cl THE LIGHT AND DARK 

This English crusade against the United States was got up 
by the British aristocracy in sheer animosity against our 
Government, — not so much, perhaps, against our people, chiefly 
because they cared nothing about them. It was our system 
of government they hated, because it was a standing, growing,: 
and luminous reproof of the blighting and degrading system^ 
of England, which starves the masses of her people in order 
that the privileged few may die of surfeit. 

'" Blackwood's Magazine," an authority not likely to be 
charged with hostility towards the British oligarchy, nor with 
flivoritism towards our republic, said, in speaking on this 
same subject in the same year (1840), — 

" It were well if some ingenious optician could invent an 
instrument which would remedy the defects of that long- 
sighted benevolence which sweeps the field for distant objects 1 
of compassion, while it is blind as a bat to the misery around 
its own doors." 

Well said ! I saw and felt it all when I went through 
the streets and lanes and cellars of Manchester, where fifty 
thousand blanched skeleton men, women, and children were, 
slowly or rapidly, dying of starvation. In that city, also, vast ; 
anti-slavery meetings were got up to induce the North to put 
down slavery in the South. These assemblages were invaria- 
bly under the auspices of the aristocracy, and they were held 
v/here the police were stationed at the doorways to drive off 1 
the famishing, lest their plaint of hunger might salute the \ 
ears of their bloated task-masters. 

There was no lack of cotton in Manchester then. There | 
was something worse than that. It was the same old com- j 
plaint you will find in any part of England, — the poor over- : 
worked and under-fed to make the rich richer and the poor i 
poorer. | 

I went up to Paisley, where more than half the population ;' 
were being fed from soup-kettles, — and pretty poor soup at 
that. There, too, the abolition of American slavery seemed 



OF THE REBELLION. 73 

to be the only thing which drew forth the sympathies or 
reached the charity of the aristocratic classes. 

So everywhere in England it was, " that long-sighted 
benevolence, sweeping the distant horizon for objects of com- 
passion, but blind as a bat to the misery at the door.'' 

It was not so in 1840 alone. I have been in England 
! several times since, but I never saw a good year for the poor 
of that oppressive empire. 

To show that this was all the poorest of shams, and that 
England owes us no good will, let us step from 1840 to 1863. 

We see all things the same in England to this day, except 
in the " negro business." Here all is changed. British sym- 
pathy is now shifted from the slave and lavished on his mas- 
ter, — from ''moral pocket-handkerchiefs and religious fine- 
tooth combs" to the overseer's lash and the unleashed blood- 
hound, — from the maintenance of free institutions to their 
overthrow, — from civilization to barbarism, — from liberty to 
bondage. 

In 1840, Mr. Stephenson, our Virginia slave-breeding 
Ambassador near the Court of St. James, became so odious 
that no chance to snub or insult him was lost by the British 
Grovernment. 

Now, Mr. Adams, holding that same post, and embellishing 
it with all the great and noble qualities of illuminated talents 
and Christian philanthropy, is treated with far more neglect 
and far less cordiality by the same class which despised 
Stephenson and feted Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Then England complained of our remissness or shirking 
in not doing our share towards putting down the slave-trade. 
Now all her sympathies are with the supporters of slavery 
itself, which is the only support of slavery on the earth; and. 
her ship-yards and arsenals are taxed to their utmost to build 
j fleets of the strongest and swiftest steam pirates to help the 
slave-driving Confederacy sweep our peaceful commerce from 

the sea and once more inaugurate the traffic in flesh and blood. 

7 



74 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

The Britisli Government knew, when the Alabama's keel 
was laid, that she was to become a pirate; and our minister 
protested against it in vain. Three hundred of the rich 
merchants of England, in broad daylight, boasted of their 
purpose, and have exulted over its successful execution. 

The British Grovernment gave the earliest and heartiest 
encouragement to the rebellion, by recognizing it as a bellige- 
rent power the moment its task-masters reached London. It 
allowed all the materials and munitions of war the rebels 
called for to be furnished, and it has, from the first hour, given 
to the rebellion all the aid and comfort it dared to furnish our 
enemies in their atrocious attempt to immolate liberty and 
enthrone slavery in the Western world I* 

* It has amazed those who are familiar with Lord John Russell's public 
history that he should have trifled so heartlessly with the great issues of 
civilization and free government at stake in this rebellion. This shuflfling 
has cost him the confidence of the great middle class in England and the 
respect of the world. If the following letter addressed to him may seem to 
be unlike letters usually written to titled men, I consider it quite respectful 
enough to the man who has struck hands with j)irates and become pimp 
to the propagandists of negro slavery. Although written nearly two years 
ago, I see no occasion for retracting a syllable or cancelling a word. 

My Lord : — We have a habit you are not much accustomed to, — of 
straight talk and honest dealing : so you need not be amazed if we speak 
very plainly in this despatch. 

You have all your life been a place-seeker or a place-holder. To get 
power and money, you have always turned your back on your friends and 
let your Reform measures go to the dogs. Whenever you have been an 
'' out," and any American question came up, you were a warm advocate of 
our Republic. AVhen you were an "in," you changed your tone. When 
Liberty was at stake in a foreign nation, or at home, you have been its 
noisiest champion, — if an "out." If an "in," you have done your best to 
crush it, in Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Poland. It was with a 
pang that you saw even old Greece become free. For half a century, if an 
"out," you have brawled for Freedom and Free Governments j if an "in," 
you have resorted to the very last trick to keep there. You have, if an 
"out," always paraded your friendship for the United States, and viru- 
lently assailed any Tory or Conservative ministry. " In" again, you first 
veered, then hesitated, then tacked, and then attacked us, our Government, 



OF THE REBELLION. 75 

No jurist will pretend to say that in all this she has not 
violated the spirit, if not the letter, of her own laws of neu- 

aud all American things. You know our Republic has never had any fair 
play from any ministry except the Tories or Conservatives. All Americans 
involuntarily say of British politicians of your stripe, "Save us from our 
friends, and we will take care of our enemies." But you have reserved the 
meanest and most bare-faced tergiversation of your public life till you 
were pressing the verge of your mortal existence. After pointing a thou- 
sand times with exultation to our great and prosperous nation, and de- 
ploring the two wars England waged against us, you are now gloating 
over the prospect (as you deem it) of our speedy disruption and downfall. 
After hobnobbing with every abolitionist and feting every run-away 
American negro who managed to reach England, and imploring Britons no 
longer to use slave-grown cotton and sugar, you now take sides with the 
"nigger-driving" secessionists of the rebel States, who are trying to break 
down freedom in America and extend the area of that accursed institution 
and sanctify the revival of the African slave-trade. You are threatening 
war against the United States unless we will surrender two intercepted 
traitors on their way to your abolition arms and sympathies, the chiefest 
emissaries which the slavery you have always pretended to hate could 
send to your shores. 

John Russell! how unworthy is all this of the descendant of your 
great ancestor, who sealed with his blood on the scaffold his life-long de- 
votion to the cause of justice and human freedom ! Why must you, just as 
you are ending your career, rob your proud name of that ancient halo 
which has gathered around it, by expending your last efforts in trying to 
blot out Fi'ee Government, for which the founder of your race so nobly 
died, and perpetuating on our virgin soil African slavery, which the 
world is clamoring to see blotted out ? 

My lord, do you plead that the necessity of slave-grown cotton calls 
for so dastardly a betrayal by yourself of all the souvenirs of your life ? and 
will you, to accomplish this purpose, trample on all the canons of inter- 
national law and become public robbers and go and steal this cotton ? If 
you attempt it, will you succeed? How much cotton would you get before 
your ministry went down? — before you lost a market for your commerce 
with twenty-three million freemen? — before our breadstuflfs, which are now 
keeping the wolf away from British doors, would reach your shores? — be- 
fore bread-riots would occur throughout the British Islands which would 
make you turn pale? — before all seas would swarm with our privateers, — 
now twentyfold more numerous than in 1812, when you found them too 
fleet and too strong for you? — before you encountered, in addition to two 
millions of our native soldiers and sailors, half a million of adopted citi- 






76 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



trality, and the laws of nations. No intelligent man will 
deny that by these acts she has prolonged and inflamed this 
accursed war. No man in his senses supposes for a moment 
that England would have ventured on such a course of hostility 
and inhumanity at any other period of our history since the 
Peace of 1815. 

No other thoughts can suggest themselves to impartial men 
now, while we are going through a domestic trouble, — a great ^ 
trouble, which has filled every true heart in America or else- 

zens, — able-bodied men, formerly British subjects, and burning to avenge 
the wrongs of centuries inflicted on their devoted island? 

My lord, do you plead that the exigencies of statesmanship demand 
that you should turn the arms of the earth against you? Do you suppose 
•that Napoleon would lose such a chance for avenging Waterloo ? or Kussia 
for taking Constantinople? or all despotisms for crushing your supremacy? 
or all the peoples of Europe for crushing monarchy? 

It would seem that England should be willing, at least, to let us manage 
our domestic affairs, since she ha,s incurred a quarter of her national debt 
in interfering with them,- — that she should not now take to her arms "the 
foul corpse of African slavery on our soil," when it cost her five hundred 
million dollars to get rid of it in her own territories! Should not the 
Founder of Modern Liberty be glad to see how prosperously the brood of 
her young eagles had founded an empire-home in the New World's forests, 
and not writhe, and chafe, and bark at and hawk at our nest, till she could 
come here and tear it to pieces ? 

The time had gone by, we hoped, when England, our oion w;of^er, would 
try to become our ste2)-mother ! Why could she not have been proud in 
the pride of her daughter, and let her wear the jewels she had herself so 
nobly won? And yet malicious people say that England acts like some 
old dame, who, after parting with the title to a daughter's estate, feels that 
she has still some reserved right left to interfere in what no longer con- 
cerns her, and casts now and then an envious glance at beauty yet un- 
shrivelled and conquests forever beyond her reach. 

Can it be, my lord, that such unworthy feelings as these can now enter 
your heart as an English statesman? We cannot believe it. Can you 
desire to put one more great trouble on the heart of your beloved, widowed 
queen ? We cannot believe it. 

My lord, you should be engaged in doing some good to the people of 
your own empire, rather than in trying to hurt a great, a kindred, and a 
friendly nation. After attempting so long to be a statesman, do not finish 
by being only a ministerial bully. 



OF THE REBELLION. 77 

where with a sadness which has dragged us ^'dowu to the 
depths of the earth/' 

That England should choose such a moment of our national 
adversity, such as she has so often passed t|jrough, of vindi- 
cating the supremaci/ of government to save civilization^ — a 
moment when she saw what she fondly deemed a fatal blow 
levelled at our prosperity, if not our very existence, — such a 
moment to join our fues to make our destruction sure ! 

Thank God ! she was the only nation that contemplated 
with satisfaction our impending doom ! Thank God ! she 
will never live to see it ! We have been punished for 
our national siiis already, till the blood has burst from 
every pore ; and the cup of trembling may be pressed still 
harder to our lips hereafter. But we shall not die. In the 
Doomsday-Book of Nations many a leaf must be turned after 
England's record has been passed, before ours can be reached. 
Nations never die in the morning of life. They are chastised 
in their youth that they may grow up in wisdom and right- 
eousness. But when they have grown hoary in crime, and 
chastisement will no longer end in reformation, they must go 
to their graves, unwept, unrepented, unforgiven. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^. :^ 

It is always pleasant to turn away from the contemplation 
of British unfriendliness to our Government, and, crossing 
that narrow channel, greet the sight of the vine-clad hills of 
France. Once on that genial soil, the American feels at home. 
He may not speak its language, he may not understand its 
simplest expressions ; but he feels among friends. France 
may be growing restive under the reign of Louis Philippe, 
and the fever of an approaching revolution may be felt in the 
heated air; or that great nation may have grown wild in the 
delicious delirium of a Lamartine republic; the coiip d'etat 
of the 2d of December may have just fallen ; or he may find all 
France calm, prosperous, and happy under the strong but 
beneficent sway of the Emperor of her choice. 

7* 



78 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

It is still France to tlie American. So true is that say- 
ing of Kousseau, " It is possible to love friends better than 
kindred." 

This sentiment is nothing new in our times. Under all forms 
of government and at all periods of our political existence, 
the two nations have been friends. This friendship has been 
broken up by no war; it has been disturbed by no revolu- 
tion. Nor is it at all likely to be. The reasons are plain. 
Under no possible circumstances can France love England; 
under no possible circumstances can England like France. 
France did not willingly resign her empire in North America; 
and the moment our Declaration of Independence was made 
she became our national ally, and helped us to wrest the 
Thirteen Colonies from the grasp of her ancient foe. She 
again, for a miserable pittance, sold us the vast territory of 
Louisiana, — first to strengthen our Government, and second 
to keep it out of the hands of England. It is safe to say that 
if we had not held the mouth of the Mississippi we should 
have had a very different history. 

But this is by no means all we owe to France. We are in- 
debted far more to her efforts for the civilization of America 
than we are even to her friendship since we became a people. 

A glance or two at the past will make this clear. 

Most of the continent lying within the limits of the forty- 
ninth and twenty-ninth parallels of latitude belonged originally 
to France; and all along its great shores and rivers she set up 
the light-houses of civilization. She explored all the great 
lines of communication which the trade and commerce of the 
continent follow to-day. 

Beginning with the mouth of the great river St. Lawrence, she 
penetrated the unknown bosom of North America. Arrested 
only for a day before Niagara, — that eternal miracle of the 
physical creation, — the explorers pushed on over inland seas, 
till, without the stars to guide them, they would have been 
hopelessly lost on the waving prairies of the Far West. 



OF THE REBELLION. 79 

Those early explorers were the Jesuit missionaries of France. 
They were the first pathfinders of our empire ; they first car- 
ried the torch of Christianity and science into those unex- 
plored regions. 

Two centuries have gone by; but their monuments still re- 
main. They can be traced from Arcadia to St. Anthony's 
Falls. The magic shores of Champlain and Lake George still 
hold the echoes of the shouts of the chivalry of France. They 
planted ih.Q Jiewr de Us, and it grows there still. The names of 
Montcalm and Champlain still ring among those mountains; 
and among the few stricken descendants of Indian tribes who 
still haunt those neighborhoods these names are household 
words. 

The French left their language among the children of the 
forest, and it is preserved. The Iroquois still remember with 
tenderness and love the souvenirs left them by the humanity, 
the science, the genius and superb manners of the Jesuit 
fathers and the brave cavaliers of the age of Louis XIV. 

Sailing up the other great continental river from the Gulf 
of Mexico, the French explorers reached the westernmost point 
their St. Lawrence brothers had made, till they met and held 
council on one of those anticlinal ridges where, if a drop of 
water be spilt on a sharp edge, half of it finds its way to the 
ocean through the St. Lawrence, the other goes to mingle 
with the warm Gulf Stream. 

And so everywhere we follow the path of these explorers 
we find evidences of the efibrts of the French to introduce 
civilization. They founded cities; they established missions; 
they explored regions utterly unknown ; and they left in their 
writings imperishable monuments to their fame. 

France came to America to give light, knowledge, science, 
religion, liberty. For no other purpose did she ever set 
foot on this continent. 

England never came but for robbery, conquest, or to esta- 
blish negro slavery. She never tried to civilize the x\mericau 



80 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Indian. Slie never helped establish a colony on this conti- 
nent, unless it may have been to reward a court favorite with 
a monopoly or to make sinecures for her nobility. 

New England owes her no thanks; for it was settled by 
the Puritans, after she had hunted them out of her kingdom 
like wild beasts. Miles Standish, Roger Williams, Lord Balti- 
more, William Penn, Oglethorpe: — what did the British 
Government ever do for any of these men, or their colonies ? 

True, England was ready enough to claim such colonies 
as her properti/, and such colonists as her subjects, as soon as 
they were important enough to tempt her cupidity. But 
what help did the British Government ever give these colo- 
nies? It was claimed in the House of Commons, during the 
debate on the Stamp Act, that we had been planted by its 
care and nurtured by its protection. " Planted by your care T' 
exclaimed the indignant Colonel Barre. '^No! your oppres- 
sions planted them in America. Nourished by your indul- 
gence? They grew up by your neglect." 

But, leaving all those old wrongs in oblivion, and for- 
getting even the insults which followed them in later years, 
a new generation had come up, prepared to look with 
friendly eyes on what was once called in America our father- 
land. The two nations seemed to be coming together and 
clasping hands in a lasting alliance. A cable was laid on the 
jloor of the ocean that rolled between us; and 07ice, at least, it 
sent a message of amity, and it was heartily responded to. 
Here the amity seemed to end. The cable could go no further. 
Was it ominous ? It seems up-hill work to lay another, par- 
ticularly with both termini on British soil ! Yes ! to flash by 
submarine lightning new aid and comfort to the murderers of 
our republic, — advising them that a new steam war-pirate for 
their service has just passed the grain-ship Griswold in the 
Mersey, the one to destroy the commerce and the lives of 
loyal American citizens, the other freighted with bread to 
save the lives of the starving operatives of Lancashire ! 



OF THE REBELLION. 81 

Most Englisli statesmen seem to be laboring just now 
under a strange infatuation. They appear to forget from 
what sources tliis nation sprung, and the elements of strength 
and endurance we have aggregated in our progress ; that 
iiwe are not one people, but all peoples, since all have mingled 
to aggregate one republic; that these new combinations 
have resulted in a new form of national existence; that 
none of us propose to surrender this system of political life ; 
that any other system must, at least for a long time to come, 
be an impossibility here ; and that it is the fixed and unalter- 
able determination of the great body of the American people 
to maintain their institutions forever. 

If in taking this course we are to encounter the opposi- 
tion of other nations, we are prepared to do it. We have 
done nothing to provoke it, as far as we know, nor is it likely 
that we shall. We wish to avoid it, if we can. But it would 
be going too far to say that we would purchase immunity from 
foreign intervention at any price whatever. 



82 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XII. 

The Issue as tlie Soutli made it :— Independence or 
Subjugation. 

From tlie first hour of this Rebellion, its leaders have de- 
clared that there was only one issue to be tried : — Independence ' 
or Subjugation. They have never admitted the possibility, 
of the suppression of the revolt through the triumph of the 
national arms. The overthrow and capture of their armies — 
the very worst thing they thought could ever happcD — we. 
supposed would end the struggle. They thought differently; 
and they still declare that they adhere to the ground theyy 
first took : — if they fail in achieving their separation and inde-: 
pendence, they expect nothing but extermination. 

Therefore they must prepare for it, for it will come : they* 
have pretty nearly ruined themselves already; we can finish 
the work. ' If there must be a final sacrifice, it will not be 
the Union. 

They have held up their subjugation as a bugbear to ex- 
cite the sympathy or horror of the world, — like an arrested 
felon who declares that, if the officers of justice do not let him 
go, he will take his own life : as though anybody cared how 
soon he did it. It is a matter of no sort of consequence to 
mankind, how quick traitors die ; but it is of some importance 
that, like Judas Iscariot, they should make way with them- 
selves, and thus save honest people the expense of their con-- 
viction and hanging. 

No! the world in 1863 can richly afi"ord to dispense withi 
the further services in the cause of humanity of all men and 
all communities whose sole business consists in sustaining 



OP THE REBELLION. 83 

slavery and the slave-trade, or any other man-degrading and 
Heaven-insulting system of iniquity. The death of tyrants is 
the resurrection of Freedom. 

If the truth were all told, it is now plain enough that during 
the first year of the war we carried it on with a fatal degree 
of humanity. Mr. Lincoln had said, " Nobody is hurt ;'' 
and it seemed likely, under that system, that nobody would 
be, — except two or three hundred thousand of our youthful 
soldiers. They have left their bones to bleach on the fields 
of their valor, or they have been carried out dead from the 
hospitals, or they have gone home with broken-down consti- 
tutions or crippled for life. 

The most stringent orders were given not to interfere with 
slavery or the slaves under any circumstances; not to destroy 
rebel property, but to protect it: and many a soldier has been 
shot down by the rebels while he was protecting the property 
of armed insurgents. Things had gone so far that slaves who 
passed our lines were ordered to be sent back ; they could not 
be employed even in the most menial offices of the camp; 
while the idea of drafting them into the army sent a chill 
of horror through the veins of all '^conservative men." 
Generals who attempted it, or proclaimed the slaves of all 
rebels in conquered territory /rec, were either severely repri- 
manded or relieved of their commands. 

The idea of prosecuting a war with any great success on 
this system would have been simply ridiculous, had it not 
been suicidal. Tens of thousands of our best troops were kept 
up to their waists at work in water and mud, under a tropical 
sun, with gangs of negroes eating army rations and looking 
on the brutal immolation of the army itself. 

The first blow levelled at this silly, shilly-shally way of 
waging an aggressive war, came from the sturdy hand of that 
earnest, clear-headed man, General Benjamin Franklin Butler. 
Oa the 25th of May, some fugitives from Hampton made 
their way to Fortress Monroe, and under a flag of truce — the 



84 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

then usual style — were claimed as fugitives from service 
under and by virtue of tlie Fugitive Slave Act. General 
Butler looked at the case as coming within the provisions of 
military law, and decided that, under the peculiar circum- 
stances, he considered the fugitives contraband of icar. This 
was the first time that term had been applied to escaped slaves. 
It was then inscribed on the charter of their freedom. 

It was, too, the first gleam of good sense and military judg- 
ment on this subject which had flashed through the war. 

From that hour the Revolution began to move. The Re- 
bellion began to grow weak; the Union, to grow strong. 

The Rebellion was assailed in its weak point : we had to 
undermine the castle which could not be carried by storm. 



OP THE REBELLION. 85 



XIII. 

The Mission of the Masonic Fraternity in this War. 

The beneficent influence of this great and humane in- 
stitution, which has constituted a body-guard for humanity 
as it has travelled down to us from the ancient ages, has never 
been so widely or so deeply felt at any period as during the 
ragings of this unfraternal, and consequently unmasonic, war. 

Masonry has never had a motto dearer to the hearts of its 
brothers than "Peace on earth, good will to men.'' It 
loves justice and country, and can draw the sword for both. 
It has done it in this war and in other wars. But it put forth 
herculean efforts to avert this trouble. Correspondence, appeals, 
counsel, invocation, — ALL were tried before the rupture came. 
Conventions met, North and South, East and West; every- 
where the patriotic, the true, the brave, and the unselfish 
communed together; and at one time we believed that our 
great fraternity of more than a quarter of a million men 
could arrest the tide of Disunion and quell the storm of 
political madness and sectional hate. But the storm was too 
loud, the night too dark. We were on the breakers! — we 
struck ! among the saddest hearts in the country, the very 
saddest beat in our bosoms. 

But we were not alone. The gloom that clouded our spirits 
cast its shadow over every nation. The Old World sent 
back its cheering messages and hailed us in our sufferings. 
Wherever the news of our national disasters was heard in 
foreign countries, it called forth expressions of sympathy from 
uncounted thousands of our brothers, whom we never saw, 
and never shall see till the Grand Architect finally calls us 

8 



86 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

all to sit together in his own Temple^ each to receive the 
reward of his work. 

Masonic incidents of the war could be multiplied without 
number. I shall give but few. 

Let me say to those who know this brotherhood only by 
popular report or external signs and emblems, that its great 
object is the elevation and happiness of our fellow-men, — all 
brothers, because all children of the same beneficent and 
almighty Father who bids us walk together in unity and love 
on the earth till we meet again in another life, higher, purer, 
and better than this. 

It should not seem strange that the members of such a 
commonwealth, on whose encampments no sun ever goes down 
and in whose canopy the stars shine forever, — a commonwealth 
that is limited to no clime and hemmed in by no mountains 
or oceans, — whose citizens, without regard to language or 
sect, always meet on common ground and greet each other as 
kindred, ready to put one's life in the other's stead, — all aspiring 
to the noblest life we can live, — it should not seem strange that 
a different tie should bind us together than binds other men. 

Many and many a time, in scenes of carnage which have 
marked the prosecution of this war, has the widow's son found 
help. 

In one of the frequent collisions which occurred between 
Stuart's cavalry and our own near the Blue Ridge, free- 
masonry shone out in all the glory of humanity with which it 
was delivered to us by the ancient founders of our institutions. 
Then American character came out, in its oriflammeof heroism, 
to prove that we have a country, and that the old banner must 
be kept floating. Floating ! Yes ! The next man that hauls 
down that flag, "shoot him on the spot!" General Dix never 
littered better words than these. 

But that the true, earnest-hearted love of our brothers 
gliould die in the depth of all our home-troubles, — that hu- 



OF THE REBELLION. 87 

inanity should for once grow pale before the skeleton form 
of terror, — we never thought of that. But you know, brothers 
mine, that we love humanity no less — that our fellow-men are 
no less dear to us — even if they have not come within the 
charmed circle of our common love. Many of them are our 
brothers who will be; for our great fraternity must, sooner 
or later, embrace all the true and faithful who dwell in all 
climes, who speak all languages^ who love humanity as the 
nearest approach to God. 

Yes I one day, my brothers, we shall all come together. In 
our common home we shall all meet. No good being can in- 
terrupt our calm contemplations We shall, as true men and 
real brothers, come together at last ! 

And what a meeting will that be! No wanderer lost, — 
a family complete in heaven ! 

>ic ^ ;(i iK * * 

Oh, what a gathering! From our first grand master to 
our present honored one, — an unbroken chain of nobly-de- 
scended successors, who have ever given us " light from the 
East," and consolation in all the sufferings and trials of our 
humble but sanctified brotherhood, as it has done its good and 
heroic work, down through the dim and doubtful ages. 

That will be the day of our triumph ! We can expect to see 
what we lelieve in now, — one brotherhood that God loves and 
pardons, and one brotherhood which tried on earth to make a 
brotherhood in heaven. We live in the eternal sunshine of 
hope. To us all the present belongs, and that " present is all 
flashing with the purple light of love." We have faith in our 
truth to each other, — in our national love; we believe in the life 
that now is, and a still stronger faith we hold in the better life 
to come. Yes ! this faith holds us up when we are sinking. It 
sustains us in desponding hours, when we begin to doubt even 
if the earth goes round the sun, — when the last fragment of 
Galileo's world is crumbling at our very feet. Yes ! then we 
say, <^Thy will be done!" 



88 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

XIY. 

Tlie Eeal Dignity of Citizenship— Eoliert J. Walker. 

After Paul had been carried into the castle of Jerusalem, 
from whose steps he had addressed a blood-thirsty mob of 
his countrymen, the chief captain of the castle ordered 
him to be examined by scourging. As they were binding 
him with thongs, he " said unto the centurion that stood by. 
Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and 
Tincondemned ? When the centurion heard that, he went 
and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou 
doest, for this man is a Roman. Then the chief captain came, 
and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman ? He said. 
Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum 
obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I icas free 
horn" 

Citizenship meant something in those best days of the 
Roman Empire. "Valor, justice, and loyalty to the constitu- 
tion of Rome had for centuries imparted a dignity to citizen- 
ship which commanded the admiration and respect of the 
world. In a distant province and on another continent, far 
from the capital of the Caesars, Paul had only to announce 
those magic words, ^' I am a Roman citizen : I appeal unto 
Caesar;'' and his person at once became sacred. 

" Thou appealest unto Caesar, unto Caesar shalt thou go." 

Men made Rome, — not the gods. 

In no nation has citizenship been surrounded with greater 
security and glory than in the republic of Washington, 
He has been to the commonwealth of the Potomac more than 
Romulus was to the republic of the Tiber. That common- 
wealth must be preserved, as was its great prototype. Rome 



OF THE REBELLION. 89 

never dealt daintilj with traitors. She never had but one in 
her Senate, and he " fled like a kited ghost that snufFs the 
morniDg air" the instant his treason was discovered. Our 
Senate-House swarmed with traitors, and they were allowed, 
with unpardonable impunity, to blaspheme the Union even 
in the presence of its most sacred altars. 

But, while these degenerate scoffers at a common nation- 
ality were maturing their conspiracy for its overthrow, another 
and a vast company of loyal and great citizens were pre- 
paring for its defence, and at the first signal of danger they 
came crowding around the ark of the Constitution with a 
higher and completer dedication. 

Among them all, there was none purer or greater than the 
man whose eloquence and patriotic exertions had successfully 
defeated in Mississippi and the whole Southwest the first 
onset against the Union, thirty years before. Youthful then, 
but not so vigorous as this rebellion found him, he has brought 
to the aid of the country all the vigor and might of his genius 
and all the prestige of his mature and enviable fame. In all 
the attributes which make u^) the chancellor of the exchequer, 
the advocate and jurist, the patriot and the statesman, his 
fame is full. No man in private life has brought to the sup- 
port of Mr. Chase, in his grand and successful measures of 
finance, such powerful arguments and lucid illustrations. His 
papers on this subject have been read by all the bankers and 
statesmen of America and Europe. 

Those, however, who have not enjoyed a familiar acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Walker cannot be expected fully to appreciate 
his intellectual character and acquisitions.* 

* I shall never cease to consider myself fortunate in having formed the 
acquaintance of Governor Walker at an early period of life. The first 
cessation of my academic studies I seized with avidity for a journey to 
the Southwest. What I supposed would be a visit of a few days to tho 
delightful city of Natchez, in 1834, ended in a protracted delay, solely for 
the purpose of profiting by the instruction of Governor Walker in the 

8* 



90 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

The intellect of Robert J. Walker presents a rare combina- 
tion of qualities seldom found united in the same individual. 
It is at once practical and profound, active and strong, in- 
ventive and laborious, bold and cautious. The basis of this 
peculiar mental organization is to be found in the perfection 
of those fundamental faculties which contribute to the extent 
and accuracy of knowledge as well as to its practical and 
logical use. Mr. Walker is gifted with extraordinary powers 
of observation, and with a memory of the most tenacious charac- 
ter. His imagination, although subordinate to the judgment, 
is sufficiently powerful to give character to his whole intellect; 
but it is chiefly observable in the boundless resources which 
it places at his disposal in any emergency requiring the exercise 
of that faculty. 

Few men who have travelled so little have seen so much 
or derived equal profit from their personal observations. Mr. 
Walker is by no means unacquainted with the observations of 
others; yet the most valuable information he possesses, and 
that which he uses to the best effect, he has acquired in his .' 
own personal experience, confined chiefly to his native country. 
No American is more thoroughly acquainted with the United 
States, their physical features, their public improvements, and 
their boundless resources of all kinds. His knowledge on all 
these subjects is not general and indistinct, but is surprisingly 
accurate and minute. Indeed, there is, in all the operations 
of Mr. Walker's mind, whether merely passive and receptive 
or active and creative, such an intensity that every impression 
made upon it, either by observation or reflection, constitutes a \ 
vivid picture, distinct and perfect in its outlines, and ever 
ready to appear at his command to instruct and delight his 
friends. 

principles of law and public economy. For what little I may have written 
or done that has been or may become of any service to my fellow-men, 
I shall always be grateful to him as my wisest and best master. Above, I ' 
have ventured on an analysis of his philosophical genius. 



OF THE REBELLION. 91 

In argument or investigation, the movements of Mr. Walker's 
mind are so quick and active, its resources so unbounded, and 
the results of its action often so unexpected and surprising, 
that no ordinary effort will suffice to follow its subtle processes 
or to understand the principle which controls them. With an 
equal prospect of success one might undertake to analyze 
the rays of reflected light which emanate from a superbly- 
polished diamond, and which, in their intensely pure and per- 
fect brilliancy, change with every motion of the gem and 
with every shade of color in the surrounding objects. Mr. 
Walker's mind seems to be just such a source of intellectual 
radiance. 

Nothing enters it that is not transformed by its magic 
power into shapes of usefulness and beauty. Its internal 
action is intensified by his peculiar bodily constitution, — by 
the transparency of the physical medium through which it 
observes, and by the delicacy and perfection of the organiza- 
tion in which it resides. No intellect was ever so little in- 
fluenced by the mortal framework which enclosed it. The 
moods and conditions which affect so powerfully the minds 
of other men are utterly devoid of any influence over the soul 
of Mr. Walker. Under all circumstances, objects present them- 
selves to his mind in their usual forms and colors, and are 
given out again in new and extraordinary combinations. 

Perhaps the most remarkable trait in the mental character 
of Mr. Walker is the fertility of his inventive or jDrojective 
genius when applied to political, social, or economical subjects. 
This is nothing less than the true creative faculty, though it 
be exercised exclusively in practical affairs. It is the imagi- 
nation applied to the most useful and important of all work, — 
the poetic inspiration made to perform its noble office in the 
homely departments of ordinary life. No one can fully appre- 
ciate this quality in Mr. Walker's mind who has not witnessed 
the wonderful wealth of inventions which he pours out in pro- 
fusion on all occasions when called upon to present measures 



92 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

for some great and pressing emergency. The single sugges- 
tion which may be finally adopted, though selected with infi- 
nite judgment, gives no adequate idea of his intellectual re- 
sources. It is necessary to know and estimate the ideas which 
have been set aside and rejected, in order to understand fully ; 
the character and value of that which is retained. It is his 
habit to empty his fertile brain of its thoughts on any such 
subject, and then to choose the ode which seems most suitable 
to the end required. Like some great magician, he pours out 
a multitude of gems, all sparkling and brilliant, and calls on 
you to select the one which most pleases your fancy, or he 
exercises the same choice for himself; and, like the true ma- 
gician, his store seems inexhaustible. 

Most observers would characterize Mr. Walker's mind as 
being pre-eminently inductive ; and perhaps he himself would 
regard this as the true appreciation of his intellect. Certainly 
no man was ever more studious of details, or sustained his 
theories by a stronger array of facts. But I cannot help 
thinking that the deductive faculty, after all, is the predomi- 
nant one in his mind. This alone will explain the quickness 
and fertility of his inventive genius. Either through the facts 
by some intense activity of generalization, or by an intuitive 
faculty apparently independent of facts, he seems to see at a 
glance the great general truths which rule the economical and 
political world. He is infinitely laborious and indefatigable 
in marshalling the facts and testing his generalizations by 
them, explaining every apparent exception, and modifying ] 
the expression of general truths so as to comprehend the infi- 
nite number of particulars which only seem to conflict with 
each other. Never satisfied until the subject of investigation 
is utterly exhausted, he pursues it, with untiring patience and 
ardor, into all its minutias and collateral ramifications. He 
follows every thread of philosophical connection to the last 
extremity, and having satisfied his most unsparing critic, — him- 



OF THE REBELLION. 93 

self, — lie pronounces the result with confidence of full convic- 
tion and with the certainty of absolute demonstration. 

In the true sense of the term, Mr. Walker is a genuine lover 
of philosophical truth and a sincere seeker of it. Such is 
the analysis of the mind of this extraordinary man^ as I have 
read it for many years. 



94 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XY. 

The United States Sanitary Commission*— How it started, 
what it intended to do, and how it has been done. 

Some brief account of the Commission should come into 
this book, for three good and satisfactory reasons. First, the 
country knows very little about the matter. It has gone along 
too quietly to jostle itself into notoriety, and it has been 
too busy with its great work to cultivate ostentation. Thank L 
God that science never takes one step backward, — that 
humanity never retrogrades! Second, the objects of this 
Commission should be more fully known to our people. 
Blood and carnage have ruled the hour : the people of this vl 
nation and other nations have stood gazing in blank amaze- ii 
ment at this wild drama, with no time to think of any thing -iti 
■ ■ !•■ 

*" When the suggestion of a General JSTational Sanitary Commission was iA 

presented to the President, he authorized it at once, and clothed the Com- M 

mission with all necessary authority. It was too convincing to need • 

arguments, and too plain to need illustration. This prompt response was j^ 

one of the most striking proofs that the wisest action of a really free H 

nation comes from the heart of its people. The President not only acted 1 i 

quickly, bvit wisely. The men he appointed commanded the confidence i j 

of the country; and they command it in a still higher measure to-day: — 1 1 

The Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D., New York; Prof. A. D. Bache, ') 
LL.D., Washington; George W. Cullum, U. S. A., Washington ; Alexander ' 
E. Shiras, U. S. A., Washington; Robert C. Wood, M.D., U. S. A., Wash- 
ington; William H. Van fiuren, M.D., New York; Wolcott Gibbs, M.D., .. 
New York; Samuel G. Howe, M.D., Boston; Cornelius R. Agnew, M. D., ;J 
New York; Elisha Harris, M.D., New York; J. S. Newberry, M.D., { 
Cleveland; George T. Strong, New York; Horace Binney, Jr., Phila- 'l 
delphia; The Right Rev. Thos. M. Clark, D.D., Providence, Rhode Island; i' 
The Hon. Joseph Holt, Kentucky; R. W. Burnett, Cincinnati; The Hon. : 
Mark Skinner, Chicago; Frederick Law Olmsted, New York. , 



OF THE REBELLION. 95 

but tlie great strife itself. Third, this Commission has moved 
sanitary science ahead. 

It is too early yet to determine the boundaries of its con- 
quests. But it is safe to say that it has inaugurated in its own 
field a far better system than had ever existed before in any 
^ country. It has come up from what Lord Bacon so well 
i denominated the source of all power, — the bosom of the people. 
One evening, as nearly as I can learn, Ilev. Dr. Bellows, 
I and some other gentlemen, in a pleasant reunion in a private 
' room in New York, discussed a plan which, under the sanction 
of their great names and through the indefatigable labors of 
!, these pioneers ever since, has resulted in the formation and 
I superstructure of one of the most beneficent and glorious 
i institutions in the world. 

The founders did not contemplate in the beginning the 

achievement of impossibilities. They undertook to do what 

should be done, — what it was right to do, — what was needed; 

and they did it at the right time. It has been a practical 

working machine. Its objects were to make modern sanitary 

science become the handmaid of the rifled cannon; to cure 

by the matchless agencies of humanity and learning as fast 

as gun-makers could mangle; to save all unnecessary loss of 

health or life; to improvise means of rescue and recovery; 

to improvise hospitals on the battle-field ; to send the disciples, 

i and sometimes the apostles, of the laboratory, the scalpel, and 

I the kitchen, to every camp, and, through the smoke of em- 

f battled hosts, to bring away in Good-Samaritan arms the 

wounded, the helpless, and the dying; to lead the van and 

l^i press the rear of every corj^s; to advise about the location of 

camps, the best regime for an army's diet and clothing, the 

personal habits of soldiers, and the proper cooking of their 

i food : — in a word, how the patriot soldier may, with all the 

|| appliances of science and humanity, be able to do his full 

duty to his country before he falls in her cause or returns 

with honors to his home. 



t 



96 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Sucli were the objects of the Sanitary Commission; and 
these objects they have quietly and successfully accomplished 
even beyond their best hopes. Some illustrations are needed 
to show these points more specifically. Let the Commission 
speak for itself. 

First. Its Organization and Duties. 

In their first report to the Secretary of War (December^ 
9, 1861), the Commission says:— I 

'< Sir : — By direction of the Sanitary Commission, I respectfully submit 
the following report of its operations since its appointment by you, on the 
9th of June, 1861, pursuant to the recommendation of the Acting Surgeon- 
General, under date of May 22, 1861. 

"By your order appointing the Commission, it was vested with no legal 
authority, and with no power beyond that of 'inquiry and advice in re- 
spect of the sanitary interests of the United States forces.' It 
directed especially 'to inquire into the principles and practices connecteclMi 
with the inspection of recruits and enlisted men, the sanitary condition 
of the volunteers, to the means of preserving and restoring the health and 
of securing the general comfort and efficiency of troops, to the propel \ 
provision of cooks, nurses, and hospitals, and to other subjects of like i 
nature.' 

" The Commission has from the first fully recognized the fact that it 
ofl&ce was purely auxiliary and advisory, and that it was created solely ti 
give what voluntary aid it could to the Department and the Medica 
Bureau in meeting the pressure of a great and unexpected demand oi 
their resources." 

In a circular (October 22, 1862) for general information 
they more minutely unfold their objects. These are state( 
to be to — 

"1. Maintain constant inspection of camps for the dissemination of in 
telligence regarding the prevention of sickness. 

"2. Maintain the preparation and distribution of short but thorough] 
medical and sanitary papers for the guidance of medical and other officers 

" 3. Believe the wounded on battle-fields, by supplying them with con 
densed food, stimulants, and means of preserving life, as at the battle of 
Antietam, when twenty thousand dollars were expended in a few days. %\jl 

"4. Keep a corps of experts in constant circulation in all our hospitals* | 
reporting defects, correcting evils, and doing their utmost to alleviate th] 
radical sources of sufi"ering. 



OF THE REBELLION. 97 

"5. Maintain the machinery for collecting and distributing the supplies 
furnished by the homes of the land, — a business of great labor, expense, 
and wide agencies. 

"6. Afford special relief at our various 'homes' for sick and wounded 
men who are in transitu from camps and hospitals. 

"7. Make the general wants and condition of sick and wounded men a 
constant study, and strive, by influences on Government, on Congress, and 
the public, to secure such new laws, or general orders, or to make such a 
public opinion as will induce constant improvement in their condition." 

And still further : — 

^' The plan of the Relief Service of the Sanitary Commission is — 

"1. To secure, as far as practicable, reserves of hospital and ambulanoo 
supplies, in order to be prepared to act with efficiency in emergencies. 

"2. To cover in its work, as far as practicable, the whole field of the 
war, dispensing supplies wherever most needed, to all in the service of 
the Union, without preference of State, arm, or rank, army or navy, 
volunteer or regular. 

"3. To study the whole field, by means of carefully selected and trained 
medical inspectors, in order to determine where supplies are most needed, 
and to watch against their misuse. 

"•4. While administering to all pressing needs of the suffering, to care- 
fully avoid relieving the officials in charge in any unnecessary degree 
from their responsibility, but to do all that is possible to secure his full 
rights to the soldier unable to help himself. 

''5. To cordially co-operate, as far as practicable, with the hospital ser- 
vice of the Government, endeavoring to supplement, never to supplant it." 

Second. The Necessity for the Establishment of 
THE Sanitary Commission^ and wHx\t it has done. 

"A large percentage of the disease and weakness of our armies up to 
this time (in other words, the waste of many millions of our national re- 
sources) has been due to the inexperience of medical and military 
officers alike as to the peculiar dangers and exposures that surround the 
soldier in camp and on the march, and which render the money the nation 
has expended in putting him into the field a far more precarious invest- 
ment than it would be were he kept under strict subjection to sanitary 
laws. The liability of soldiers to disease should be far^less than it is. 
It would be so were they required to observe the laws of health. They 
and their officers, and the people and the Government, have thus far too 
generally overlooked those laws. But the last twelve months have taught 
the army and the people the immense importance of sanitary science in 
war. 



98 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

"Our seliool has been costly, but it has already taugbt us much. For 
the last three months, thousands and thousands of wan and wasted forms 
brought North by railroad and on hospital-transports, stricken by no 
rebel bullet, but by far deadlier enemies of the nation, — malarial fever 
and camp-dysentery, — have been impressing on the people the lesson the 
Sanitary Commission has been endeavoring to teach ever since the war 
began, — viz. : that our soldiers were in far greater danger from disease than 
from the violence of their enemies, and that we lose ten men uselessly by 
preventable disease, for every man destroyed by the enemy." 

The dreadful battle of Fair Oaks gave the Commission a 
full opportunity to test its usefulness and efficiency. In a 
letter from Mr. Olmsted, Secretary to the Commission, dated 
"Sanitary Commission Floating Hospital, Tender 'Wilson 
Small,' White House, June 10, 1882," he says, — 

'^ During the week since the engagement of Fair Oaks, 
more than fonr tlwusand have passed through our hands, 
— half this number having been taken away on the trans- 
ports of the Commission. Scarcely the slightest provision 
had been made for them, except on these transports; and when 
they were not at the landing, the weight of care for the suste- 
nance and comforting of the poor wretches sent in from the 
field by railroad, during the time they necessarily remained 
here, fell almost wholly on those of the Commission's agents 
who were not at the time detailed to either of the transports. 

Messrs. and were among these ; and the protracted 

severity of the labor which they willingly undertook would 
have been possible only under the influence of the belief 
that lives depended on the last exertion of their energies, 
strained to the utmost, and that with men to whom the saving 
of life became a passion." 

It was utterly out of the power of the medical staff of the 
army to meet so frightful an emergency ; and had it not been 
for the timely provisions of the Commission, Heaven alone 
knows how few of those four thousand men would have been 
saved ! 

Again, July 4, 1862, in speaking of the operations of 



OF THE REBELLION. 99 

the members and agents of the Commission on James River 
during and after that Iliad week of lieroism on the Penin- 
sula : — 

^^ Thousands of brave men are now lying, without sufficient 
shelter, food, or attendance, in the camps and depots on James 
Eiver. A^ery many of them are destined to perish, who could 
have been preserved by a blanket, a suit of hospital clothing, 
and a few days' allowance of proper diet and stimulants instead 
of their ordinary rations. The Commission has saved hundreds, 
if not thousands, of men since this campaign began, by supply- 
ing these inexpensive wants. A very few dollars provides 
what can save a soldier's life, worth in mere money value 
hundreds of dollars to the army and to the community. At 
this time, of all others, the country cannot afford to waste the 
lives of men trained by a year's experience, and made veterans 
by the terrible week of continuous battle through which they 
have just triumphantly passed. 

^' The transport-service of the Commission is also rendering 
indispensable aid to the country in bringing North men who 
would have perished if left in the malarious hospitals of Vir- 
ginia, but who are enabled, after a short sojourn in a healthy 
northern climate, to rejoin their regiments. More than ten 
thousand sick and wounded men have thus been transported 
to the North by the Commission, with special attention to 
their care and comfort, up to this date. By thorough system, 
complete ventilation, attention to all sanitary conditions, and a 
liberal supply of comforts and appliances which Government 
does not yet provide, it is believed that these 'floating hos- 
pitals' have been made superior to those heretofore employed 
in the service of any country. 

"This is but a part of the work on which the Commission 
is engaged. But it is at this moment by far the most pressing. 
Its magnitude is appalling, in view of the multitude of those 
to whom the question whether help from the people shall reach 
them to-day or to-morrow is a question of life or death, aud 



100 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

in view, also, of the moral certainty that a few days will in- 
crease that number by thousands. For the sake of this work, 
the Commission has thought it right to contract its other 
operations for the j)resent and concentrate its resources mainly 
on the relief of the sick and wounded on the Peninsula. 
i, ''It may be said that Grovernment should do all this without 
help from private charity. Were this true, the default of 
Government would not excuse us in leaving our soldiers to 
perish without an effort to save them. But it is only partially 
true. While active operations are in progress, and especially 
at the close of great battles, the prompt and thorough relief 
and treatment of the sick and wounded require an amount of 
force, in men, material, and transportation, which no Govern- 
ment has heretofore been able to keep permanently attached to 
its medical department. At such times volunteer aid from 
without is indispensable to prevent the most fearful suffering 
and waste of life, however faithful and untiring the medical 
staff may be. Such aid must be regularly organized in order 
to be economical and efficient ; and the Commission, with its 
large corps of officers and agents on the ground, experienced 
in their duties and in confidential communication with the 
military authorities, seems the best organization through which 
the sympathy and affection of the peoj)le can reach and relieve 
the people's army." 

The following letter to George T. Strong, Treasurer of the 
Commission, from Dr. C. E.. Agnew, one of its eminent medical 
council, written from the Peninsula, July 1, 1862, gives a 
graphic account of scenes he witnessed : — 

'' My dear Mr. Strong : — I wish you could have been with 
me at White House during my late visit, to see how much is 
being done by our agents there to alleviate the sufferings of 
the sick and wounded soldiers. I have seen a good deal of 
suffering among our volunteers, and observed the marvellous 
variety and energy of the beneficence bestowed by the patri- 



OF THE REBELLION. 101 

otic and pliilantliropic in camp, in hospital, and on transports 
for the sick; but nothing has ever impressed me so deeply as 
this. Perhiips I can better illustrate my meaning by sketching 
a few of the daily labors of the agents of the Commission as 
I saw them. The sick and wounded were usually sent down 
from the front by rail, — a distance of about twenty miles, — 
over a rough road, and in the common freight-cars. A train 
generally arrived at White House at nine p.m., and another at 
two A.M. In order to prepare for the reception of the sick 
and wounded, Mr. Olmsted, with Drs. Jenkins and Ware, had 
pitched by the side of the railway, at White House, a large 
number of tents, to shelter and feed the convalescent. These 
tents were their only shelter while waiting to be shipped. 
Among them was one used as a kitchen and workroom or 
pantry by the ladies in our service, who prepared beef-tea, 
milk -punch, and other food and comforts, in anticipation of 
the arrival of the trains. By the terminus of the railway the 
large Commission steamboat Xnickerbocker lay in the Pamun- 
key, in readiness for the reception of four hundred and fifty pa- 
tients, provided with comfortable beds and a corps of devoted 
surgeons, dressers, nurses, and litter-bearers. Just outside of 
this vessel lay the Elizabeth, a steam barge loaded with the hos- 
pital stores of the Commission, and in charge of a store-keeper, 
always ready to issue supplies. As soon as a train arrived, the 
moderately sick were selected and placed in the tents near the 
railroad and fed, those more ill were carried to the upper saloon 
of the Knickerbocker, while the seriously ill or badly wounded 
were placed in the lower saloon and immediately served by 
the surgeons and dressers. During the three nights that I 
observed the working of the system, about seven hundred sick 
and wounded were provided with quarters, and ministered to 
in all their wants with a tender solicitude and skill that ex- 
cited my deepest admiration. To see Drs. Ware and Jenkins, 
lantern in hand, passing through the trains, selecting the sick 
with reference to their necessities, and the ladies following to 

9« 



102 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

assuage the thirst, or arouse, by judiciously administered stimu- 
lants, the failing strength of the brave and uncomplaining suf- 
ferers, was a spectacle of the most touching character. If you 
had experienced the debilitating influence of the Pamunkey 
climate, you would be filled with wonder at the mere physical 
endurance of our corps, who certainly could not have been 
sustained in the performance of duties involving labor by 
day and through sleepless nights, without the most philan- 
thropic devotion and the highest sense of Christian duty. 

^' At Savage's Station, too, the Commission had a valuable 
depot, where comfort and assistance was dispensed to the sick 
when changing from the ambulances to the cars. I wish I 
could do justice to the subject of my hasty narrative, or in 
any due measure convey to your mind the impressions left on 
mine in observing, even casually, the operations in the care 
of the sick at these two points. 

" When we remember what was done by the same noble band 
of laborers after the battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks 
in ministering to the wants of thousands of wounded, I am 
sure nothing but feelings of gratitude and thankfulness of 
the most heartfelt kind can arise. 

" Yours, sincerely, 

"C. R. Agnew. 

"July 1, 1862." 

Hardly had the smoke curled off from the battle-grounds of 
the red Peninsula, before the seared and blasted field of Bull 
Kun was again to shake under the tread of two hundred 
thousand soldiers, and old graves were to open for another un- 
counted host. 

During that long day of slaughter, while all Washington 
was listening to the distant, but distinct, roar of artillery which 
reverberated heavily over the Capitol, the corps of the Sanitary 
Commission were at their work. Messengers were flying 
backward and forward, over the land, up and down the river, to 



OF THE REBELLION. 103 

and from the battle-field, and the telegraph-wires were quiver- 
ing unceasingly with the restless flashings of the lightning. 

The awful history of that tragedy was read in the rapid 
procession of several hundred one-, two-, and four-horse ambu- 
lances, which passed down towards Long Bridge, to return 
freighted with the wounded, the mangled, and the dying. 

But meanwhile the Sanitari/ Commission icas doing its wovh 
of sublime mercy. 

But the fiend of Rebellion, more fiendish than ever, had 
not yet exhausted his malice. The rebel leader had from the 
beginning promised his deluded followers with the possession 
of the national capital, and, once more almost in sight of its 
domes and towers the infuriated horde, flushed with victory, 
were pressing on, determined to win the prize. 

Once more the gifted but rebel '■' Lord of Arlington" looked 
ofi" wistfully upon his home-mansion, rising among the vene- 
rable trees of his old ancestral estate, where he had spent his 
happiest and noblest days. 

But the doors of Arlington House had been closed on him 
forever. Nor could the chief of the Southern Rebellion make 
good his promise to his desperate myriads. The city which 
Washington founded was not to be trod by a foreign or do- 
mestic foe. Its soil was indeed sacred ! 

* ^ 5ic * :{< * 

Both armies had crossed the Potomac, and again they M^ere 
to measure their strength. The field of Antietam was to be 
lost or won. Leaving to the historian of the war a description 
of the lurid carnival which Death held over those devoted 
plains on that carnage-day, let us follow the Sanitary Com- 
mission on its gentle, angel-protected path. 

^ * * ^1; He * 

When night fell on the awful field of Antietam, the stars 
shone down on ten thousand of our wounded men. Thousands 
had been carried to the rear of each corps, as the fight went 
on; thousands of the disabled or wounded had been trampled 



104 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

into the eartli by the march of advancing columns; but from 
the mingled masses of dying and dead horses and men the 
lacerated and bleeding were borne away by the hands or in 
the arms of their comrades to places of transient repose, where, 
at least after some hours, they might have a cup of water held 
to their lips. 

The battle had raged over an area much larger than the 
island of Manhattan, and every rod and rood of that ground 
was covered with the wounded and the slain. 

The agents of the Sanitary Commission were early on the 
field of Antietam, — although they had hardly rested from the 
wasting toils of the slaughters of Virginia, and the hardly less 
prostrating flitigues of forty hospitals in the District of Co- 
lumbia, then containing nearly twenty thousand suffering 
soldiers. Not only were the agents of the Commission there ; 
the ablest surgeons, members of the Commission itself, were on 
the scene, and gave themselves to the work, night and day, till, 
from sheer exhaustion, they laid themselves down fainting by 
the sides of their bleeding patients, — rebels and loyalists : no 
distinction was made. 

For the next few days, around the neighborhood of An- 
tietam the clock did not strike an hour whose history was not 
crowded with scenes to which the genius of pen or pencil 
could impart no more grand or touching delineations. 

Says Rev. Dr. Bellows of Antietam, — 

"Our independent means of transportation often enable us 
to reach the wounded with stores in advance of all Govern- 
ment or other supplies. The first two days are more import- 
ant than the next ten to the saving of life and the relief of 
misery. 

" At the recent battle-ground we were able to be present in 
advance fico days of all suj^j^lies (beyond the small amount in 
the nearly empty storehouse of the army medical purveyor), 
with twenty-five wagon-loads of stimulants, condensed food, 



OF THE REBELLION. 105 

medicines, and conveniences. Within a week we despatched 
successfully, by teams, to the scene of battle, from Washing- 
ton alone, 28,763 pieces dry-goods, shirts, towels, bed-ticks, 
pillows, &c., 30 barrels bandages, old linen, &c., 3188 pounds 
farina, &c., 2620 pounds condensed milk, 5050 pounds beef- 
stock and canned meats, 3000 bottles wine and cordials, and 
several tons of lemons and other fruit, crackers, tea, sugar, 
rubber cloth, tin cups, and hospital conveniences." 

From the indomitable Dr. Agnew, on the field, as he saw 
it:— 

"I left Dunning's wagon — in fact, all the two-horse wagons 
and ambulances of our train — constantly going, and carrying 
relief to thousands of wounded. 

" The wounded were mainly clustered about barns, occupy- 
ing the barn-yards, and floors, and stables, having plenty of 
good straw, well broken by the power threshing-machine. I 
saw fifteen hundred wounded men lying upon the straw about 
two barns, within sight of each other ! Indeed, there is not 
a barn, or farm-house, or store, or church, or school-house, 
between Boonsborough, Keedysville, and Sharpsburg, and 
the latter and Smoketown, that is not gorged with wounded, — 
rebel and Union. Even the corn-cribs, and in many instances 
the cow-stable, and in one place the mangers, were filled. 
Several thousands lie in the open air upon straw, and all are 
receiving the kind services of the farmers' families and the 
surgeons. 

^'I hope I never shall forget the evidences everywhere 
manifested of the unselfish and devoted heroism of our sur- 
geons, regular and volunteer, in the care of both Federal and 
rebel wounded. Wherever I went, I encountered surgeons 
and chaplains who had given themselves no rest in view of 
the overwhelming claims of suffering humanity. 

"We have been ahead of every one, and at least two days 
I ahead of the supplies of the Medical Bureau, — the latter fact 



106 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

clue to its want of independent transportation. A single itemn 
will show the value of our supplies. We have given out over^r] 
thirty pounds of chloroform within three days after the battle. i. 
The medical authorities had not one-hundredth part of whatii 
was needed, and in many places important operations weree 
necessarily neglected and life lost. Our eliloroform saved ati\\ 
least fifty livesy and saved several hundred from the pain of f 
severe operations. The want of chloroform was the mosti 
serious deficiency in the regular medical supplies, and, as thee 
result, amputations which should have been primary will nowv 
be secondary or impossible. (The mortality from secondary / 
amputations is very much greater than from primary.)" 

But I must stop here, by saying that the Sanitary Commis- - 
sion has not confined its exertions to the Potomac and its ^ 
adjacent neighborhoods. 

It is a national institution. It moves with the tear. 
"Wherever our armies march, or sail, or battle for the Repub- 
lic, from the Atlantic coast up all its bays and rivers, around I 
the Florida capes, along all the coasts of the purple South, , 
from the llio Grande to the mouth of the Mississippi, and 1 
floating with our gunboats over its ample bosom, from the '. 
yellow waters of the Missouri down towards the summer-land, , 
— everywhere our flag is carried in this crusade for the Re- - 
public, the Sanitary Commission is just as present and efiicient t 
there as it has been on our bloody fields of the Potomac. No i 
organization for a similar purpose established on the earth ever • 
covered so broad a field ; no association ever existed which car- 
ried its purposes into effect so soon. No one ever commanded I 
so completely the confidence of the world; no one ever achieved I 
so much with such small means. No one has combined in so • 
large and so wide a measure the highest efforts and the most - 
earnest congratulations of so many gifted and glorious men. 

But, while its direct object has been, and will be, limited . 
to the practical business of saving men's lives, its mission will j 
not be confined even within so vast a field. It must overleap ) 



OF THE REBELLION. 107 

all such boundaries. Humanity, educated by science, 

AND GUIDED BY THE DIVINE INSPIRATIONS OF CHRIS- 
TIANITY, IS YET TO MAKE THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH. 

The United States Sanitary Commission lias been the good 
genius of this bad war. Its Eddystone Light has flashed its 
hopeful rays all over the angry surges that have been dashing' 
around it. It could not, like the great Master, say, " Peace, 
be still !'^ but it could set the signal of humanity and hope, 
and come to the rescue when there was no one else to save.* 

This work it has nobly done; it is doing it still. "f" 

* Sick Soldiers. — The number of soldiers registered on the books of 
the Sanitary Commission as having entered hospitals since November 1, 
1862, and up to April I, 186.3, — five months, — is as follows: — 

Central office at Washington 68,000 

Louisville 60,000 

Philadelphia 7,000 

New York 6,000 

Total 141,000 

•f- To enumerate the services of the Commission in detail would far tran- 
scend the limits of this work ; and yet I cannot dismiss the subject without 
saying one or two things more. 

1. The means of belief administered to soldiers the very in- 
' STANT they need HELP. — The department of Special Relief, which has 

been under the charge of Mr. F, N. Knapp, has done a great deal by way 
of helj) at the moment it was needed. More than one hundred thousand sol- 
diers going to the war or returning from it have come within the range of 
Mr. Knapp's kind intervention. His "Soldiers' Homes," "Rests," "Re- 
liefs," and all sorts of stopping-places, have been multiplied all over the 
country, just as far as the army has gone and just as fast as they were 
needed. The provisions Mr. Knapp has made do not include only some- 
thing to cat and drink, — not merely roast beef and coffee, — but a comfort- 
able bed for the tired soldier, where he can repose after his campaign and 
get strength to go on his way. It means any clothing he may need, any 
little luxury he may desire, so that when the train backs in to take him 
home he may, icith his full pay, got for him without a penny discount, and 
a ihroiifjh ticket, take his seat in a car at Washington and get out of that 
same car at Chicago. 

2. To save soldiers from imposition, expense, and delay. — How 
mercilessly our poor comrades are sacrificed when they leave the camp! 



108 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

To fight for the flag while they arc in the ranks is the religion of the true 
soldier. To go home when he is honorably discharged is his next thought; 
• — and he wants to go home quick. No car can go fast enough. Mr. 
Ivnapp's arrangements suit these cases exactly. 

Then these little cities of refuge are at all the grand junctions of our 
continental system of intercommunication. These are literally "The 
Homes of the War." The wounded or sick soldier comes : a surgeon is 
ready; nurses and attendants — men and women — come. They are all I 
welcomed and all cared for as they would be in a father's house. More 
than sixty thousand human beings now live to rise up and call that man 
blessed; and then the grand reservation is left to him still: — "Inasmuch as i 
ye did it unto one of the least of my disciples, ye did it unto me."* 



'^- 1 have heard of no general officer who has not expressed his hearty approval of }" 
the whole management of the Commission, nor one who did not feel that the good done » 
by the Commission was incalculable. Major-General Rosccrans, in his distant and a 
difficult field, has had ample means of knowing what the Commission has done. 

AVhile he highly appreciates and does not undervalue the charities which have beenfl 
lavished on the army, experience has demonstrated the importance of system and ;]1 
impartiality, as well as judgment and economy, in the forwarding and distiibutioQi|i 
of these supplies. In all these respects he declares the United States Sanitary Com-|- 
mission stands unrivalled. 

Its organization, experience, and large facilities for the work are such that th( 
General does not hesitate to recommend, in the most urgent manner, all those wh« 
desire to send sanitary supplies to confide them to the care of this Commission ; inas^ »' 
much as they will thus insure the suiiplies reaching their destination without wastage "i 
or expense of agents or transportation, and their being distributed in a judicioug i 
manner without disorder or interference with the regulations and usages of th« 
service. This Commission acts in full concert with the Medical Department of th^ 
Army, and enjoys its confidence. 



1 



OP THE REBELLION, 109 



Tlie Duty of tlie Kepublic to its Pallen Heroes. 

*'Coelumque aspicit et dulcis moriens reminiscitur Argos." — Virg. 

" Such honors Ilion to her hero paid, 
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 

Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach deprived of obsequies. 
Oh, give me Hector ! to my eyes restore 
His corse, and take the gifts ! I ask no more. 

The best, the bravest of my sons are slain. 

For him through hostile camps I bend my way. 

Lo ! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son. 

^■f * » * m 

Steeped in their blood, and in the dust outspread, 
Nine days neglected, lay exposed the dead." — Iliad. 

The first duty of a Grovernment is to protect the life of the 
soldier ; the second is to give him honorable burial when he 
has fought his last battle. This duty has been recognized by 
all nations, and it has been considered imperative. No nation 
so barbarous as to neglect the ashes of its patriots, — no family 
so divested of social affection as not to desire to recover the 
earthly relics of one of their number who died away from 
home. 

That mysterious chain which binds the heart of the sur- 
vivor to the dust of the departed is now binding the hearts of 
an innumerable company of our people to the graves of our 
fallen soldiers. To recover the ashes of the loved one is the 
first thought that occurs; and the uncertainty of the spot 

10 



110 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

where the body is reposing intensifies the grief. Promiscuous 
burial the human soul abhors. 

This feeling is natural, and it cannot be repressed. Yirgil 
has beautifully expressed it in the line we have quoted above. 
With his back to the earth and his eyes on heaven, the dying 
soldier thinks of his beloved home. It is generally among the 
very last wishes of those dying among strangers, that they 
could die at home. 

Our fancies will visit the red fields of valor which have been 
sanctified by the baptism of patriotic blood; they will haunt the 
halls of our hospitals, filled with the suffering, and steal into 
the countless chambers of tlie bereaved, where Rachels are 
" weeping for their children, and will not be comforted, because 
they are not." 

The duties of Governments to their fallen soldiers apply 
with peculiar force to the soldiers and families of republics. 
Our grand army of a million men is a fair, full, and honor- 
able representation of the great body of the people. There 
are whole regiments and brio-ades where there is not a man 
who did not leave home and kindred for the war, — kindred who 
watch with tenderness and apprehension the news of every 
battle, and whose affection spreads its drooping wings over the 
camp where the soldier sleef)S. How many of our rank and 
file would not have Christian burial if they died at home, and 
some plain stone, at least, in memoriam, placed to mark the 
last couch of the sleeper? How many of oui* army, fallen 
already, have not left friends who would part with some trea- 
sure to recover the bodies of those the}^ loved, or at least to 
know the spot of sepulture ? 

Hundreds of instances — yes, thousands — are known of at- 
tempts, often fruitless, to find, identify, mark, the spot, or make 
inquiries about the graves. The Western battle-fields alone 
have grouped a million stricken hearts around those suddenly- 
created sepulchres of the brave. Our officers and soldiers put 
forth their last heroic exertions, in every skirmish and in 



OF THE REBELLION. Ill 

every figlit, to bring off our dead^ or bury them on the field, 
preserving their identity as far as the horrible exigencies of 
war will allow. 

But this was not enough; and the Sanitary Commission 
early undertook to obtain information by which " the j^lace 
of burial of the volunteers who have been killed in battle, or- 
who have died in hospitals, may be established. They have also 
elaborated a system of records for those dying in hospitals, and 
of indications of their burial-place, by which their bodies may 
be identified ; which has received approval, and been ordered 
to be carried out, blanks and tablets for the purpose being 
furnished to each regimental quartermaster.'^ 

This plan was warmly embraced by Congress and the Soldiers' 
Relief Associations, and it was in the main adopted, and has 
been carried out as far as it seemed possible. 

One thing more was needed. Besides having cemeteries, 
larger or smaller, wherever our soldiers have fallen, we should 
have a great national cemetery for soldiers near Washington, 
where all our brave men who fall in the service in this neigh- 
borhood, or who can be brought here, may have honorable 
graves. Each State could have a space allotted for its own 
citizens: and this City of the Dead should be embellished by 
emblems of art and beauty, which exalt and refine civilized 
life. The cost of this war for one hundred minutes would 
munificently accomplish this.* 

* Soldiers who die in the camp of General Hooker are given a suitable 
burial. In all cases the bodies are enclosed in good pine coffins, obtained 
from the Quartermaster's Department, and the interment is made with the 
ceremonies due the rank of the deceased. 



112 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XVII. 

How to end tlie War by the Arts of Peace- 
Eli Thayer's Plan. 

Bacon said that the worst thing in national or international 
war was the decline of the arts of peace ) and by their decline 
he measured the approaches of nations to barbarism. And 
yet the student of Bacon very well knows that he was not ^^a 
peace man/' He indeed regarded peace as the normal con- 
dition of society, as health is the normal condition of the 
human body. But he claimed no exemption for Grovernments 
and communities from the law of purgation and blood-letting. 
He held that when a nation could not come out triumphantly 
from a war of defence, that nation either had never had any 
vitality, or she had lost it; and, further, that a nation which 
could not go successfully through a long, devastating, and 
merciless civil war to vindicate its constitution, its laws, and 
all the elements of its nationality, suppressing rebellion against 
its sovereign power and crushing its enemies under its feet, 
and then settling back to its wonted repose, stronger than 
ever, — he regarded such a nation's doom as sealed. 

And all history was with him, — all history has been with 
him to this day. His own England proved it. In her earlier 
epochs the Britons had only once proved themselves strong 
enough to resist the shock of foreign invaders. Rome alone 
was unable to subdue Britain ; and nothing but the untimely 
death of Caesar saved that island from becoming a helpless 
colony of Home. The Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans 
all came and conquered, and the race of the Angli gradually 
faded away. 



OF THE REBELLION. 113 

But from the Norman conquest grew up gradually, though 
surely, a great nationality, which we now call England. That 
nationality grew up by war, and war only. The arts of peace 
had little to do with the consolidation of England as she stood 
in 1815. By war, William of Normandy extended his king- 
dom through a large part of England. By war his successors- 
conquered and annexed the Principality of Wales. By war, 
and a war of centuries only, was the Emerald Island brought 
under the yoke and kept there. By war — unrelenting and 
unprovoked — was Scotland annexed to the hated crown of the 
Plautagenets. By one of the most ferocious and bloody civil 
wars that had then been known was England able to consolid- 
ate her own Government, maintain her central authority, 
and hold even her old rebellious subjects loyal to her throne. 
She extorted loyalty from all the peoples she conquered; and 
she did it at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the 
bayonet. Who ever heard of England settling a rebellion by 
compromise? The day she did it would have been hung in 
black : from that hour her decline and fall would have dated. 
She would have parted with the prestige of union, entiret}--, 
wholeness, invincibility. 

And yet England does not hesitate now to advise us to de- 
liberately cut our empire into pieces, — to halve it with rebels, — 
to compound the most stupendous felony of all the ages, — to 
treat for peace with a lawless band of murderers holding the 
knife at the throat of a common mother! In o'ivins' this 
advice, her impudence is not even graced with the counsel of 
the fox who recommended all foxes thereafter to give up the 
silly fashion of wearing tails. England has not yet lost hers, — 
although she may hereafter find out that the steel-traps are 
laid in the dangerous path she seems determined to follow. 

America take England's advice about this insurrection ! 
Just as soon would we have taken her advice about putting 
down the Whiskey Rebellion. We prefer to follow her ex- 
ample rather than her counsel, — shoot it down. 

10* 



114 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



But^ while no great insurrection against sovereign authority 
was ever successfully and permanently suppressed hy arms 
alone, there are other agencies which can be invoked that 
in our case would prove omnipotent. Let us go back to 
Greece. The rock of Athens, and the few vales and moun- 
tains which stretch away from that light-house of ancient civil- 
ization, went through centuries of home-struggles before she 
consolidated her people and her power and became the leader 
of the nations. Then began her conquests, chiefly through 
colonization, which made her the queen of the commerce and 
the arts of the world. Wherever her colonists settled, they 
subdued surrounding communities through the arts of peace, 
resorting to force only for the first settlement of her people, 
and afterwards only for self-protection. 

So was it with Rome, and on a far grander scale. Her 
policy was conquest, through two agencies which she never 
dissevered. She never suppressed an insurrection by force of 
arms alone. She always confiscated the lands of the disloyal 
as fast as she got military possession, and gave them to her 
own true citizens, who settled on them, and defended them 
hy arms, in the name and by the authority of Rome. In 
this manner it happened that she so consolidated her power 
in the Peninsula that her union of the Italian states, tribes, 
and peoples remained unshaken and unthreatened for nearly 
a thousand years. If a word of treason was uttered by a dis- 
appointed politician, he went to exile, or he was hurled from 
the Tarpeian rock. If a planter attempted to excite insubor- 
dination on the distant plains of Lombardy, a cohort of Roman 
soldiers sent him in chains to Caesar, and his estate was cut 
up the next day into a hundred homes for the exempt veterans 
of the army. 

Whenever and wherever the rights of a Roman citizen 
were interfered with, in Europe, Africa, or Asia, an armed 
expedition went at once to avenge the insult, and, after sum- 



OF THE REBELLION. 115 

mary justice had been dealt out, a portion of the expedition 
remained and settled or the lands of the enemies of the repub- 
lic, and another Roman colony was born. Rome foiujht to 
save, and not to destroy, civilization. Once only, in her life of 
twelve hundred years as a nation, did she conquer only to ex- 
terminate. Carthage and Rome could not both be supreme- 
in the Mediterranean; but several centuries had to witness 
the rivalry before the verdict of supremacy was awarded. 
Roman statesmen cared nothing for Africa ; for her nomadic 
tribes were not worth conquering, and, with the exception of 
Egypt, her soil could not support a colony. But Carthage 
had harassed and worried, and at one time nearly conquered, 
Rome; and it became necessary to blot her out. The war 
icas carried into Africa; and the future history of the Cartha- 
ginian Empire was all summed up in that memorable bulletin 
of Scipio, — 

" Carthago est delencla." 

An approach to this was seen some centuries later, when the 
army of Aurelian turned their backs upon the smouldering 
ashes of Zenobia's capital. 

Elsewhere, the arts of peace kept pace with the tread of the 
Roman legions. From Alexandria to the Golden Horn, from 
the Danube to the Guadalquivir, from the borders of Scot- 
land to the plains of India, wherever the Roman Eagle un- 
furled his wings of conquest the armed colonists of the great 
republic of antiquity put the spade and the plough to work. 
Those colonists carried with them all the implements of the 
highest civilization of that age and all the ages that had gone 
before it. It was, therefore, an easy matter for Rome to save 
all she gained. She took no step backward till she stopped 
colonizing other lands. 

So, for several hundred years, Rome sat securely on her 
Tiber-washed throne, in the midst of a thousand strong and 
flourishing colonies scattered all through the known world, 
like stars in a solar system, — all owning allegiance to the 



116 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

federal authority, all prosperous in each other's prosperity, 
all basking in the same beneficent sunlight, and all sharing 
the same almighty protection. 

In this manner and in this way alone did Rome suppress 
rebellion, extend her empire, and consolidate the strongest and 
the best government in existence. It was never a despotism 
but for a day; and with the close of that day Tarquin was 
driven into exile. Rome had but one traitor; but the scorch- 
ing satire of Cicero sent him skulking from the Senate-House, 
and when he had left the Capitol his power to breed treason 
died. 

Thus the Eternal City — the nursing-mother of a hundred 
million colonists, with their descendants — held her seat of 
empire, the giant guardian of the human race. 

The history of the Roman system of conquest by coloniza- 
tion served as the model for England in the extension of her 
power and the spread of her empire. All the foreign possessions 
England ever got she obtained by conquest and aggression ; 
all she has ever held she has held by colonization. 

It has hitherto been unnecessary for us to make any ag- 
gression on the territory of other states ; and it will doubtless 
continue so for a long time to come. We have by fair treaty 
purchased all the Indian titles which we hold. We bought 
Florida of Spain, and Louisiana of France, and California of 
Mexico. Texas became ours first by peaceful colonization, 
next by a treaty of annexation as between two sovereign 
states. 

Now the question comes home to us in the midst of this 
greatest of all known rebellions, how shall we jDut an end to 
the war, and, after vindicating the sovereign authority of the 
Federal Grovernment, settle all doubts about the right and the 
ability of intelligent men to have, administer, defend, and per- 
petuate free institutions, and settle those doubts forever ? 

European statesmen do not believe that a vast empire like 



OF THE REBELLION. 117 

ours can exist any longer as a simple republic. Tliey have no 
faith in the durability of any government which does not sus- 
tain and is not sustained by an aristocratic class. They hold 
that one or two of the three standard props of strong govern- 
ments must be resorted to. First, there must be a privileged 
class, who shall control the wealth and honors of the state, 
and the politics of the country. This condition is imperative. 
Second, there must be an established Church, whether it be 
represented by a priest of Isis or an Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. This, more or less, controls the consciences of the 
people. This may in a dire emergency be given up, as in 
France, where all Christian sects are treated professcdli/ on 
an equality. But the Third: there must be a monarch, — an 
emperor, a king, a prince, — a throne for the aristocracy to sus- 
tain, and a throne to sustain the aristocracy. These are re- 
garded in all European countries, hy everyhodi/ except the 
slave-masses and the foiv illuminated and humane thinkers, 
as the essential elements of enduring power and the only 
foundations on which civil institutions can permanently stand. 

But this is only a formula of the past. So did the founders 
of this republic regard it. They believed in a Church with- 
out a Pope, — equal rights and privileges without an aristo- 
cracy, — an empire without a king. They constructed a state 
on this idea, and for three-cjuarters of a century that state 
stood firm, " growing,'^ in Webster's fine words, " stronger 
and stronger every day in the affections of the great body of 
the American people, and commanding more and more the 
admiration and respect of the world.'' 

These men made no mistake in their philosophy of govern- 
ment. Their theory has not only worked as well as any other 
state theory ever did, but it has been patent to the obtusest 
observer at home and abroad that their system was the only 
one which could be made to work in our society. Their theory 
may not have been a good one as applied to the colonics 
founded in this hemisphere by the bastard Latin races. They 



118 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

have proved for two centuries that they could flourish only 
under a monarchical regime. The moment Mexico, and the 
whole horde of Spanish and Portuguese colonies from Louisi- 
ana to Patagonia, achieved what they pompously denominated 
their '■'■ independence," they began to go to decay, — and with 
chances ten to one better than our early settlers had for the 
acquisition of wealth and the spread of commerce. Only two 
or three of the score were saved. Portugal saved Brazil by 
monarchy, and we saved Texas by colonization. 

It was all a difference of races ^ religion^ and education. 

Let Napoleon have Mexico, if he can get it. As she is and 
has been, she has ceased to be of any value to herself or 
anybody else. Somebody must take care of poor Mexico. 
She has had patriots and statesmen, and she has them still. 
Her people are almost as brave as they are proud. But she is 
rolling feverishly on her bed of helplessness and sorrow, — while 
that bed is made in more than regal splendor; for it rests upon 
an empire of silver and gold. 

The only mistake our fathers made in making our Govern- 
ment was in not annihilating slavery on the spot, so that they 
might go reverently as they did, and boldly as they might, 
into the very " Holy of the Holies" of the Temple of Free- 
dom, to offer themselves once for all time and all nations a 
sacrifice for human liberty. 

Oh, if they had only done it, and completed their work, and 
presented their offering " without spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
thing" ! 

They foresaw every thing but this, that they were unwit- 
tingly bequeathing to their descendants a terrible legacy : — 
of contending with a myriad of full-grown, envenomed ser- 
pents, all sprung from the infant viper which they could so 
easily have strangled. 

But, with all our vain regrets over the only thing they left 
undone^ let us devoutly thank God for all their noble achieve- 



OF THE REBELLION. 119 

mente, and address ourselves manfully to the solemn business 
before us. That slavery would grow and spread they did not 
dream, much less that it would grow strong enough to coil its 
slimy folds around the heart of the Republic. They emanci- 
pated their slaves, and they did not doubt their descendants 
would follow their example. 

No, honored fathers ! we venerate and love you still. You 
had to go through a crusade of seven years. Our crusade 
will be shorter than that. 

>i; :^ ^ >ic H^ ;}; 

If, then, the Union is to be saved at any and all hazards, why 
shall we leave unemployed one of those strong agencies of 
civilization which other nations have had to call into action, 
when they had to consolidate their governments, or die ? 

Eli Thayer has been ringing the true policy into the 
adder-ears of our legislators for a Ions; time, — almost unheeded. 
That I might not misrepresent in the slightest, degree his 
whole scheme, I requested him to give me the brief of it in 
his own handwriting; and here it is. It effectually disposes 
of the two questions that have made all the trouble, — the 
slavery question and the negro question. 



"Washington, D.C, February, 1863. 

'^Dear Sir:— 

'^In accordance with your request, I send you herewith the 
principal features of the plan for the reconstruction and 
restoration of the rebel States. 

"The agency which I propose to employ is organized 
free labor, a power for the first time used in the settlement 
of the Kansas controversy, and afterwards in the establish- 
ment of the free-labor colony in Western Virginia. 

" Having for the last ten years advocated this agency as 
the readiest and best means of eradicating slavery from this 
continent, I am happy now to assure you that a majority of 
the Cabinet, two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and the 



120 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

people of the loyal States, without distinction of party, have 
now come to entertain the same views with myself. 

'' That this agency is perfectly well adapted to the recon- 
struction and restoration of the rebel States, will become 
apparent by considering that one of three methods must be 
made use of in crushing the rebellion and restoring peace. 

" I. By the military force we may annihilate the white race 
of the South : making a desert, we may call it peace. 

^' II. By such force we may subjugate them; but it will re- 
quire at least half a million of men to keep them in subjec- 
tion. 

"III. The third method is to secure the reconstruction, 
restoration, and permanent loyalty of the rebel States, by 
placing therein, as permanent residents, a sufficient number 
of loyal free-labor men from the Northern States and from 
Europe to hold the political and military power, with the will 
of such loyal elements as may by this means be developed. 

^' The first of these methods is too abhorrent to the senti- 
ments of humanity to find an advocate. 

'^ The second method would be v/orse than the establish- 
ment of a Southern Confederacy; because a standing army of 
half a million of men, if it did not convert the republic into a 
military despotism, would be equally fatal to its existence by 
soon devouring the property of the whole country. 

"The only practical solution, therefore, of the rebellion, 
which promises future peace and prosperity to the country, is 
the infusion into the rebel States of a sufficient number of 
loyal people to reconstruct their governments and to bind 
them indissolubly to the Union. 

" The advantages of this method are — 

*' 1st. It is easily accomplished. 

"2d. It is the best political economy. 

"3d. It solves both the Slavery and the Negro question. 

"4th. It will do more than to repair the damages of the 
war. 



OP THE REBELLION. I2l 

"I. It is easily accomplished. If tlie rebel States were 
opened to this immigration from the North and from Europe 
by the proper confiscation and distribution by State laws of 
the landed estates of rebels, one million of men would be 
furnished annually for the reconstruction of the rebel States. 
In the loyal States alone there are now more than forty 
thousand men ready to join the proposed expedition to the 
single State of Florida and to reside there permanently. 

''In these Northern States, at the present time, wages are 
high and the entire population is able to find employment, 
while in several of the European States the encouragement 
of labor was never less than at present. Therefore, if such is 
the ready response of the people of the North, now well em- 
ployed, what might we not expect if the call were made upon 
all nations of Europe for emigration ? 

" II. It is the best political economy. This method creates at 
once a base-line of productive industry, ever expanding, and 
ever strengthening itself by expansion. It is a thorough 
sifting process, retaining all the loyal elements and removing 
all others. By this method of conquering we will hold the 
conquered country by an army of producers; by any other 
method we could only hold it by an ariiiT/ of consumers. 
By this method the rebel States would soon be able to 
bear a portion of the burden of our debts and taxation; 
by any other method they would constantly increase these 
burdens. 

" III. This method solves the Slavery question, by making 
all the States practically as well as theoretically free b}' the 
very process of reconstruction. It also solves the Negro 
question, by furnishing to those sections where the negro now 
is. and where his labor is the most profitable, a class of em- 
ployers whose enterprise, energy, and thrift will enable them 
to profit by the labor of the negro after paying a fair compen- 
sation for his services. In this way the entire colored race, 
not only of the South, but of the North as well, will have an 

11 



122 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

opportunity to vindicate their manhood and their claim to 
equal rights under the most favorable circumstances. 

'' The labor of the negro is needed in this country^ and 
should be properly encouraged. It is a poor policy for a new 
and sparsely-settled country to export its laborers, and a policy 
not much better to withhold from them their wages. The 
true policy for us is to encourage, promote, and strengthen 
labor by all just and proper inducements and rewards. 

" TJie labor of a country is its ivcalth. 

*' But this is not all. The negroes of the Northern and 
Middle States would in this way be induced to migrate to the 
Grulf States, where they would enjoy a congenial climate and 
where their labor would command the highest wages. 

" IV. This method will do more than to repair the damages 
of the war, by establishing a higher grade of civilization. If 
by thus ending the war the human race attains to a higher 
position on this continent, that higher position is cheaply 
secured^ at whatever sacrifice. 

'' The triumph of free labor, encouraged by suitable rewards, 
and the eradication of the last relic of tyranny in the repub- 
lic, will be secured by this method of reconstructing Southern 
society and Southern governments. 

"This method implies and secures a greater population in 
the Southern States than they have ever had, — a more pro- 
ductive population, also, because stimulated by freedom and 
all its attendant agencies. In this way we shall have, at the 
close of this war, — 

"1st. A greater population than ever before. 

" 2d. A homogeneous population, inspired by a common 
policy. 

" 3d. A more productive population, because each will labor 
for his own interests. 

"4th. Security against all future disaffection and rebellion ; 
and, from all these causes, higher prosperity, greater national 



OF THE REBELLION. 123 

strength^ and attainments in civilization above all yet known 
to men. 

" I have thus given you what may properly be termed only 
an abstract of the plan. I might have shown that this work 
is all to be accomplished in accordance with State rights 
and by State laws. It oi(c/ht, therefore, to find favor in 
Southern latitudes. 

^'A^ery truly, yours, 

"Eli Thayer. 
"C. Edwards Lester, Esq., 

"Washixgton, D.C." 

This is conclusive. It might have gone further, and swept 
away the few remaining cobwebs that still hang dangling 
over the eyes of the bewildered devotees of African coloni- 
zation yet among us. One quotation from a very able 
writer in the " Daily Chronicle" (Washington) sets the matter 
at rest : — 

"All schemes of colonization, therefore, whether of white 
men or black, which involve penetration beyond the reach of 
existing communications or far removed from the firm basis 
of existing establishments, are false in conception and prin- 
ciple, and must be fatal in practice, — not less false or fatal, 
how^ever, than those more frequent schemes of founding 
colonies on unhealthy coasts, where there is no back-country 
or accessible interior population to support them, under 
specious pretences of great commercial prospects and a future 
eclipsing the prosperity of Havana, New York, and Boston. 

"The sad history of the attempts of the French at Tehuan- 
tepec, the English at Vera Paz, the Belgians at Santo 
Thomas, the English on the coast of Honduras, the French 
again at Cape Gracias, the Prussians on the Mosquito shore 
and in Costa Rica, and the still earlier efforts of the Scotch 
at Darien, — attempts of individuals, companies, and Govern- 
ments, and all of them abject and disastrous failures, — we 



124 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

say, the history of these should wara us against similar futile 
efforts in the future. We have been personal witnesses of the 
sufferings of deluded emigrants under the tropics, the igno- 
rance and infatuation of whose leaders rose to the magnitude 
and took the shape of crime, and as such should have met 
with exemplary punishment." 

^ : ^ jf; ^ ^ :^ 

The merits of Mr. Thayer's plan were presented, January 
9, 1863, in a report of the Committee on Military Affairs, 
prepared by Hon. Mr. Buihnton. Its brevity and great 
ability render it desirable to give it the largest possible cir- 
culation : — 

^'Recognizing the importance of whatever measure may 
tend to the defeat of the unprovoked and iniquitous rebellion 
against the Grovernment, your committee have given to this 
resolution and the enterprise it contemplates careful considera- 
tion. To lay the foundations of a free and Christian state is 
at all times a work of honor, in which the statesman may take 
ajpatriotic pride; but to firmly plant such foundations upon 
the ruins of a malignant rebellion, and thus organize order 
out of chaos and transfonn treason into loyalty, in a time 
like this, to an American Congress becomes no less than an 
imperious duty. 

"Florida, in territory, is one of the largest States in the 
Union, containing thirty-eight million acres of land, of which 
broad domain twenty-one million acres are still unsold Govern- 
ment lands, subject to entry under the liberal provisions of 
the Homestead Law. Much of the other seventeen million 
acres is in the present possession of undisguised and active 
rebels, and may at once be put upon the market under the 
righteous rcquireuients of the Confiscation and Tax Laws. 

" Her peninsular position, and the Grulf Stream running 
down her entire eastern coast, commands for Florida an 
equability of climate that makes residence within her bor- 
ders desirable, and secures advantages to the agriculturist 



OF THE REBELLION. 125 

not to be met with elsewliere tliroiigli all the extent of our 
territory. 

"For the growth unci exportation of naval stores and the 
leading articles of commerce she offers unexcelled facilities : 
indeed, with her longer season and surer exemj^tion from 
frost, she has a decided advantage over Louisiana even in 
the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and has probably a larger 
district than any other State fitted for the growth of long- 
staple cotton, and is, indeed, the only State Avhere may be 
successfully grown the Cuba tobacco. 

"While all the great staples of the southern temperate 
zone flourish throughout Florida, in her southern and eastern 
sections may be cultivated in their luxuriance the fruits and 
plants of the tropics. 

"Large tracts of live-oak and yellow^ pine, of almost price- 
less value to our navy, abound in Florida, and whose posses- 
sion for such use w^ould be warranted at almost any cost. 

"By position Florida commands the Grulf To economize 
time, and save to the rich and growing commerce of Mobile 
and New Orleans, Texas and our Pacific coast, the perils of 
the voyage around her sunken keys, the national Government, 
previous to the rebellion, by generous donation of public lands, 
secured the building of a railroad across her territory from 
the Atlantic to the Gulf. 

"Considerations growing out of each and all of these facts, 
thus briefly alluded to in the investigation which the subject 
has prompted, have pressed themselves upon your committee, 
and, we doubt not, will suggest themselves as of weighty im- 
portance to every member of the House. 

"But your committee would beg leave to suggest other con- 
siderations connected with this proposition of even more 
present importance. Through the fears and threateniugs of 
a reign of terror, F'lorida has been driven into open rebellion 
against the Government and Union, scores of her loyal 
citizens brutally murdered, and hundreds driven into exile or 



126 THE LIGHT AND HARK 

at the point of the bayonet forced into the rebel ranks. Her 
loyal citizens in exile are importuning the Government for 
protection^ that they may return to their desolated possessions 
and rebuild their once beautiful homes and throw the old flag 
again to the breeze. Twenty thousand resolute loyal men 
placed upon the soil with guns in their hands will be sufficient 
protection for these loyal men and themselves, and Florida 
will at once return to her old allegiance and to the prompt 
and honorable discharge of all the duties of a loyal State. To 
erect the pillars of a free and loyal commonwealth upon such 
ruins is certainly a work that must command the homage of 
every patriotic heart; but more than this, even, is promised 
by this enterprise: it offers a refuge for the thousands of 
freed men pressing our lines, — a place at once ready, cheaply 
reached, and where they may find, with equitable remunera- 
tion, abundance of employment in labors with which they are 
familiar and in a climate admirably adapted to their wants, 
and, under the fostering care of friendly legislation and 
friendly institutions, rapidly progress into a higher and more 
useful individual and social position. 

"And while so much of good is to be secured, and adapting 
its usefulness so happily to the special needs of this very 
time, your committee are glad to be able to remind the House 
that the enterprise has also an economic phase. The loyal 
armed occupation of Florida relieves the navy of thirteen 
hundred miles of blockade, at an expense of twelve thousand 
dollars per day, — not only relieves the national treasury of 
this large daily expenditure, but, what is by no means of 
less importance, gives these numerous vessels liberty for 
service elsewhere." 



OF THE REBELLION. 127 



XVIII. 

The Niffht of the Battle of Ball's Bluff. 



"t3" 



It was a gloomy night in Washington. One of the unex- 
pected and heart-chilling disasters which befell our arms in 
the early history of the war had that day happened at Ball's 
Bluff (October 21, 18G1). Our forces had been routed and 
slaughtered, and the gallant Colonel Baker, who had left the 
Senate-chamber to lead his splendid California Regiment 
to the war, had fallen, dying instantly, pierced at the same 
second by seven bullets. This was a national loss. His place 
in the army, in the Senate, in the hearts of the people of 
California and Oregon, in the admiration of his companions-in- 
arms in Mexico, and in the realms of eloquence, would remain 
vacant. No man living was invested with all these rare and 
great attributes in so eminent a degree. The apparently well- 
founded suspicion that he had fallen a victim to the foulest 
treason subsequently mingled the in tensest indignation with 
inconsolable grief for his cruel and untimely death. 

It was late in the evening when the news reached Willard's; 
but a large crowd was still there, among whom, as always, 
were many well-known public men. In those days secession 
was more popular in Washington than it has since been or is 
likely ever to become again. Not only was some slimy spy 
lurking within earshot of every man worth tracking, but there 
were scores of strong sympathizers with the rebellion, who 
caught with avidity the first rumor of disaster to the national 
arms. 

These abettors and agents of Davis wore the mask as closely 



128 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

as they could ; and, although the hahitues of the capital could 
tell them at a glance, and, by an instinct of loyalty nearly in- 
fallible, know when one of them entered the room, yet on 
some occasions the sudden announcement of bad Hews for our 
cause threw them from their guard and the gleam of fiendish 
delight flashed from their faces. 

'' Baker was killed at Ball's Bluff this afternoon." 

Never did news transform men's countenances quicker. 
One class received it with blank amazement and horror ) the 
other, with demoniac exultation. 

Words fell which neither party could restrain; and the 
blood of the coolest began to boil when they heard the mur- 
dered Baker's name insulted. A movement was made which 
bolder men than traitors would not have attempted to resist. 
The villains started, by a common impulse, for the two door- 
ways, or that mosaic pavement would have worn another color 
within ten seconds. A minute later, the place was cleansed; 
the unclean spirits had gone out! — all but one, perhaps. 

A very red-faced, stalwart man, who had stood by and seen 
all that had been going on without saying a word, finally 
remarked, with a pretty determined air, that '• as for himself 
he didn't care much about the fight. He lived on the Lower 
Mississippi, and the people down his way could take care of 
themselves. As long as they owned the Mississippi, the 
d — d Abolitionists could make all the muss they pleased. We 
hold the Gulf of Mexico, and the Northwest, and the Yan- 
kees may be d — d." 

A very tall, lean, awkward, bony-looking man sidled quietly 
up to the Mississippian, and, putting his nose, by a stoop, quite 
close to his face, said, in unmistakable /ar- Western trough, — 

" Look here, stranger," and gently emphasizing his re- 
mark by taking the stra??ger's left ear between his thumb and 
finger; "now, yn may not know it, but I live in Minnesoty, : 
and we make that Mississippi water you call yourn, and we 
kalkilate to use it some." 



OF THE REBELLION. 129 

The stra??ger's hand moved pretty quick for a side-pocket, 
but not quite cjuick enough. I saw a movement, I heard a blow, 
and the blood spattered surrounders slightly. In less time 
than such enterprises' usually require, the stra?2ger had fallen 
heavily on the marble floor, striking his head against an iron 
column, and remaining in a condition which rendered it de- 
sirable to have his friends look after him, if he had any. 

The Western gentleman was congratulated, — when he apolo- 
gized, " I didn't want to hurt the feller, and I didn't care 
about his bowie-knife going through me, nother. But the tar- 
nal traitor must let the old country alone, and j>«rtickilarly 
that big river. We want to "use that thar, out West." 

if. ^c :>; 5i^ 5H * 

Baker's body was brought across the Potomac the evening 
he fell. It rested all day, and then by ambulance was con- 
veyed to Washington, and carried through the same hospi- 
table doorway of his friend Colonel Webb from whose steps I 
had parted with him as he mounted his horse and gave us his 
warm, earnest hand only two or three mornings before ! Oh, 
how radiant was his face ! how athletic and symmetrical his 
form ! how unsullied his ambition ! how pure his devotion to 
God and country ! 

'^ God spare his life, at least V we said, as we saw him disap- 
pear around the corner ! This prayer Heaven could not grant. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

The following day, when the last preparations for the tomb 
had been made, we went to gaze once more, and forever, on 
what of earth remained of the form which so lately enshrined 
the noble spirit. 

'' Then mournfully the jjarting bugle bid 
Its farewell o'er the grave." 
5(: ^ ^ ;ij * * 

California claimed her hero and statesman, and his ashes 
now repose on the calm shore of that ocean which washes the 
western base of the empire for whose glory he lived and died. 



130 THE LIGHT AND DARK j 

Ilis body lies iu Lone 3Iountain Cemetery, near tlie city of 
San Francisco, and over it ^Yill rise one of the most snperb 
monuments which the 2;enius of Art has ever erected in honor 
of human greatness. 

California has committed this magnificent work to Horatio 
Stone. I have tried to give an exact description of the 
models and drawings, which I studied with some care.* 

■■• Monument to General Baker. 

This monument, designed to be constructed of white marble, in the 
general form of the triumphal arch, Ionic order of architecture, to be thirty 
feet in height ; and, as shown by the drawings of each of the four views, 
to be embellished by two hundred and fifty figures, in processions, grouped 
compositions, series of single statues, and armorial supporters, — besides the 
colossal statue of Baker, which is designed to be eight feet high. 

The estimated cost of the work is one hundred thousand dollars. 

The Desvjns for the Monument to Edward DicJcinson Baker, late U. S. Sena- 
tor/or Oregon, and Colonel of U. S. Volunteers for California. 

The comprehensive motive of this design has been to commemorate, 
through an elevated expression of sculptural language, the genius, patriot- 
ism, statesmanship, and valor of the eminent citizen whose memory it is 
intended to honor, as manifested in the chief public relations and actions 
of his career which entitle his memory to such historical honors; and the 
endeavor has been to make the sculptural reading (through single statues, 
groups, processions, and symbols) at once so comprehensive and definite 
as to obviate the necessity of inscribing in letters, little more than the 
name of the original of the statue, upon the walls of the structure. 

The method pursued, as the designs will show, is to represent, upon the 
walls of the base of the structure, symbolic compositions and figures, in 
alto-relief, embodying the attributes, principles, and aflfections which at 
once inspire and are developed aad protected by enlightened and valorous 
patriotism, and to make them appropriately expressive as to the life of the 
citizen representative, and the nation he serves. To represent upon and 
before the walls of the superstructure : first, in front, the statue of the citi- 
zen whose story is to be recorded ; second, upon the end plane of the wall, 
at the left of the statue, to represent the civil service of Baker, in a bas- 
relief of the U. S. Senate; third, upon the end plane of the wall, at the 
right of the statue, to represent the heroic service of Baker, in a bas-relief 
battle-scene : fourth, on the rear, standing, against the centre of the wall, 
in a position corresponding with the statue in front, and over the entrance 
to the vault, the ciuereal vase, upon which is represented, in a series of 



OF THE REBELLION. 131 

In tlie closing paragraph of tlie last speecli of Baker in the 
Senate^ provoked by the insulting words of the Catiline whom 

groups, the chief lesson of immortality and glory, — namely, the women at 
the sepulchre, — and two other groups presenting votive wreaths to the 
Angel of Fame ; and finally, upon the frieze of the structure, to represent 
the last honors to the hero, in the martial funeral procession. 

Execution of the Plan, in detail. 

The general form of the triumphal arch has been chosen for the struc- 
ture, in view of its heroic associations, as well as its adaptation to the 
requirements of the sculptural illustrations ; all of which are designed to 
be wrought in white statuary marble, from the same quarry and of the 
same quality as the whole mass of the structure. 

The Ground-Plan of the base, with a projection from the centre of each 
side of the parallel walls, making the form of a cross, furnishes sixteen 
planes to receive the illustrative symbols and statues, and is so constructed 
in order to secure, from the angles of projection, variety and force of ex- 
pression to the general mass, as well as the statues and groups, by the 
shadows they will throw upon them. The projection of the base in front 
also provides a pedestal for the statue, that in the rear the same for the 
vase of Immortality. A niche is cut in the walls of the superstructure be- 
hind each of these, to form a shadow for their relief. The projections of 
the base beneath the bas-relief of the Senate and of the battle are de- 
signed as proper supports to these compositions, and to furnish special 
planes for the armorial representations of Oregon and California. 

Sculptural Story, in detail. Front View, No. 1. 
The statue of the subject of the story, being the central object of regard, 
the initial letter of the sculptural biography, demands the embodiment 
and expression of all that it may be made to convey of the individuality 
I and life of the original, with reference to his claims of commemoration, 
' independently of associated records and symbols, — a requirement which the 
endeavor has been to fulfil, and with satisfactory success, in the modelled 
I study of the statue, from which the imperfect outline is sketched. 

The mantle and scroll will, through all ages, proclaim the civil eminence 
of him whom they shall represent, in sculpture, to have clothed and en- 
dowed. 

The plumed hat, and the sword lying near, will declare the added func- 
tion and dignity of martial leader. 

The next question, Where was the public service rendered ? is answered 
by the symbols of the nation, wrought upon the base of the statue, namely, 
the U. S. shield and eagle. In this composition the eagle holds in his 



132 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

for a few clays longer Heaven had condemned our patience to 
tolerate as a Senator of the United States, Colonel Baker, 
rising in his place, said, — 



talons the Union angle of the flag, which sweeps entirely around the U. S. 
shield and those of all the States, which stand behind and rest against the 
national shield, and thus indicate their subordinate and protected relation. 

On either side, as supporters of the national shield, are wrought the 
ever-burning lamps of national affection, one of them twined with the oak, 
the other with the laurel wreath. These are also representative of the 
aflFcction that will continue to cherish the memory of national defenders. 

Regarding the diffusion of light to be, if not the chief function of Free- 
dom, his first duty, I have placed a torch in the talons of his eagle-herald. 

Upon the side plane of the base of the statue, at the left, stands the 
figure of Justice; upon the right, that of Liberty, — the comprehensive prin- 
ples defended by him whose statue stands above. 

Upon the planes of the base of the structure, at the left and right of the 
last-named figures, are those representing comprehensively Patriotism 
and Valor, or the civic and heroic functions or divinities. They are each 
defending the symbol of the Union, — the fasces, — and by their action indi- 
cating that the subject of the commemorative honors has merited the oak 
and the laurel wreaths. 

Side View, to the left of Front No. 2. 
Beneath the bas-relief of the U. S. Senate is wrought the arms of Ore- 
gon, the State represented by the Senator. Upon the planes of the base 
comprehended in this view are wrought the figures of History, Poetry, 
Eloquence, and Justice, some of the teachers, inspirers, and conservators 
of civilization. Poetry and Eloquence are here in the action of contesting 
for the supremacy of their influence upon the exertions of the senatorial 
orator. In this series. History, in the act of recording, stands as the first 
teacher ,• Poetry, the awakener of emotional life and of aspiration to civil 
excellence; Eloquence, the inspirer of efficient use of developed spiritual 
power ; and Justice, as the embodied achievement. 



Side View, to the right of Front No. 3. 
Beneath the bas-relief of the battle-scene, which represents the hero 
leading a charge, is wrought the arms of California, the State he represented 
as military leader. Some modification has been made in this, to harmonize 
it with the composition of forms and lines around it, and because it ap- 
peared to me proper to bring the miner out of "his reduced proportions on 
the field of the scutcheon, and to make him, as the representative of 
Labor, a companion of Wisdom and her fcliow-supporter of the shield. But. I % 



OF THE REBELLION. 133 

"There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered by 
the tears of affection. There will be some privation. There 
will be some loss of luxury. There will be somewhat more 
need of labor to procure the necessaries of life. When that is 

should this modification prove unsatisfactory, it can be restored to the 
accepted composition. 

Upon the planes of the base, presented to view on either side of the Cali- 
fornia arms, is continued the series of statues which began with History 
and ended with Justice on the reverse view of the base. They are Liberty, 
Science, Religion, and Immortality, or the Angel of Spiritual Victory. In 
other words, they are placed in the order in which they are supposed to 
represent the successive stages of the progress of civilization up to its 
crowning development. They are at once the divine inspirers of heroism, 
and the most precious possessions of man, which heroism is called upon to 
defend. In this series Liberty is giving a torch to the eagle-herald, for the 
reason stated in another place. For obvious reasons, the discoverer of the 
electrical telegraph is made to personate Science. 

Rear Vieio, No. 4. 

The vase of sentiment has wrought upon its front a group illustrating 
the chief lesson of immortality, — the women at the sepulchre, — conveying 
the idea, " He is not here ,• he is risen." Upon either side are groups of 
mourners bearing wreaths of honor and affection, and of angels of victory 
receiving them, and indicating the glorification of the hero. 

In the plane of the base, below the vase, is the door opening into the 
burial-vault. Upon the panel of the door is wrought the fasces and 
shield of the United States, and upon these are suspended the symbols and 
honors of civil and heroic service, namely, the scroll and the sword, with 
the oak and laurel wreaths. Upon the door-jambs, on either side, stand the 
ever-burning lamps of affection; here their stems are twined with the 
flowers, indicative of the affection of grief. 

Upon the side planes of this projection of the base are the figures of Im- 
mortality and History. 

The planes of the base of the structure, on either side of the door, are 
left vacant for inscriptions. 

No. 5. The Frieze-2iroce8sion. 
The martial funeral procession starts over the battle-scene; in that sec- 
tion the flag is borne drooped and draped. In the section of the front, the 
caparisoned horse is led; in the section over the scene in the Senate, the 
bier is borne. In the section over the vault the procession stands at " rest 
on arms," while the chaplain is in the action of prayer. 

12 ' 



134 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

said, all is said. If we have the country, — the whole coun- 
try, — the Union, the Constitution, free government, with these 
will return all the blessings of well-ordered civilization. The 
path of the country will be a career of greatness and of glory 
such as our fathers, in the olden time, foresaw in the dim 
visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been 
ours to-day, had it not been for the treason for which the 
Senator too often seeks to apologize." 



OF THE REBELLION. 135 



XIX. 

Soldiers' Eelief Associations. 

No records preserved on the earth can ever tell what good 
these associations have done. All their work has had to be done 
in a hurry. Of course much of it has been imperfectly done. 
But it will always be true that some hundreds of thousands 
of brave men have known of the generosity of their absent 
friends, and their sympathy with their loved ones, in the tented 
field. 

I do not think that any of their efforts were wasted, even 
though the offerings may never have reached their destinations. 
In the tempest of so wild a revolution some wrecks were sure 
to take place. But the soldier's friend always had the will, and 
in any event the will was taken for the deed. To rememher 
an absent friend, is the first impulse of a true heart. "To 
know that we are remembered, is a genuine consolation.'^ 
Above all is it so when the boy, sleeping in the mud or snow, 
in Virginia, wakes from dreams of home, with its crackling 
hickory fire and its laughing faces around it, and is told that 
a box has come for him, filled with all the home-things which 
made his life happy before he woke from the delusion of 
childhood that " the world was without a foe." Perhaps the 
case is fairly enough stated in the following which was written 
last autumn. Says the Washington "Chronicle :'^ — 

" We have been favored with a copy of a letter on this subject 
(Relief for Soldiers), addressed to the citizens of New York, 
by Mr. C. Edwards Lester ; and the following extracts come 
home to the feelings of our people. Mr. L. says — [Ed.] 

" For a while after the war began, the number of sick and 



136 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

wounded soldiers was comparatively so small that few suffered 
neglect, except from tlie incomplete provisions of the sanitary 
department of the Government. These defects were, however, 
remedied with all possible despatch. But it was impossible 
thus suddenly to cover so broad a field. But the utmost 
energies of the Government were put forth, and the Sanitary 
Commission was no sooner appointed than they, or their duly 
constituted deputies and agents, visited every military camp 
and hospital in the country, everywhere organizing a sanitary 
regime, which has been acknowledged to be the most perfect 
any army, great or small, has had in the world. 

"After relieving all immediate wants of the sick and 
wounded, special attention was given to the preservation of 
the health of the army, — the whole system of diet, clothing, 
habits, safeguards against climatic exposures in marching, and 
every thing appertaining to the life of the camp. Never was 
an army so generously provided nor so carefully looked after. 
Appeals were made to the country, and contributions of every 
comfort, and even luxury, were forwarded in quantities almost 
incredible. The wisest and most efiicient inspection and dis- 
tribution of all these contributions were made throughout the 
whole army. It is thus estimated by the best-informed per- 
sons, officers and surgeons, and soldiers themselves, that not 
less than fifty thousand lives were saved. 

"But no such system can ever be devised which covers the 
whole ground and works with perfection. There is always a 
large margin left for individual charity and personal exertion, 
and this margin must be filled. Soldiers' relief associations 
were early formed at Washington, composed of civilians from 
every State, who went vigorously to work. All the hospitals 
in and around the capital were frequently visited, and what- 
ever was required for the comfort of the inmates was procured 
to the extent of our ability. Generous donations were sent 
our association from New York, which fortunately consisted 
last fall in clothing and other things appropriate for winter, 



OF THE REBELLION. 137 

and last spring in what was so imperatively called for by the 
exhausting heat of Washington. 

^'But all that has been received was but a drop in the bucket, 
compared with what is now being demanded. Then our sick 
and disabled soldiers were numbered only by scores and 
hundreds. Now they are counted by thousands. I know 
you will respond to this call. The great State of New York 
has had, and will have through the war, more of her sons in 
the field and hospitals than any of her sister States, and she 
must not flag now in her duty; nor will she. Her great heart 
is pierced with sorrow, and many a sister, wife, and mother 
will not be comforted, because their loved ones are not. But 
it is much easier to hear that the brave boy fell on the field, 
dying gloriously under his country's flag, than to learn, when 
too late, that he lingered perhaps for weeks, fading slowly 
away in a hospital, with no kind hand to wipe the death-damps 
from his brow as he was going to his Father's mansion in 
heaven. Oh ! who would not rather die at his own home, and 
go to sleep under the wide-spread tree beneath whose younger 
branches he played in his innocent and unclouded boyhood? 

"I have not time nor disposition to depict the scenes I have 
witnessed in the military hospitals of Washington. The 
young man, with his right arm amputated, with no friend to 
write a letter to his home, even to let his kindred know that 
he is alive, and where he is^ — how his eye brightens as some 
old neighbor approaches his cot to do for him what the Good 
Samaritans of the world all do to relieve the sick, the suf- 
fering, and the dying ! Painful as it always is to recall scenes 
of grief and desolation, I must allude to one which, among 
many others, fell under my own observation in the hospital 
which, as a member of the New York Soldiers' Relief Asso- 
ciation, I was specially charged to visit. 

''Among the many noble and patriotic sons of Erin who 
early enhsted, was one who left a wife with two young- 
children. His regiment joined the army of the Potomac, 

12* 



138 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

and lie sent his monthly pay to his home. His children 
sickened and died. I need not depict the gloom or solitude 
of the little apartment which the young mother returned to 
from the graves of her babes, while her beloved husband was 
on a distant battle-field. 

^' On that field he was severely wounded in the foot, and sent 
on to a Washington hospital. The surgeon delayed amputa- 
tion until it was evident that it could alone save his life. The 
chaplain sent at once to the soldier's wife, telling her to 
hasten to Washington if she wished to see her husband alive. 

" She was poor; but she did not hesitate. She pawned her 
little household goods, and arrived before the amputation. 
When it took place, she saw it had been delayed till it was too 
late. The worms had already taken possession of what was 
so soon to be their inheritance. They were crawling around 
where the scalpel struck. Either through carelessness or 
horror, the surgeon inflicted a slight wound in the end of his 
forefinger. The brave soldier soon died; but that loving wife 
stood by his couch steadily to the last. When all was over, 
and she had seen him decently laid in his tomb, she returned 
to what was once her home, but no longer a home for her, 
for her children and their sire were all dead. Inflammation 
began in the surgeon's finger. He delayed the necessary 
remedy until it was too late also in his own case. The virus 
from the soldier's dead foot had spread through the surgeon's 
system. He reached his home and died ! 

" Such are the scenes we witness, with others far more shock- 
ing, and many not less strange. Think ye our associates have 
not had enough to do, with all the aid which the men and 
women of New York can give us ? In a word, our Wash- 
ington Associations endeavor to do to our disabled soldiers 
what you would do for them if they were sufi"ering in your 
own neighborhood. 

'' Will you, then, come forward and help us ? 

" These are not the least efi"ective means by which this un- 



OF THE REBELLION. 189 

lioly war can be soon brought to a close, and the dove of 
peace unfolds its wings over a redeemed and consolidated 
republic. 

^^I have seen great good done by our Soldiers' Relief Asso- 
ciations. The mere fact of their existence was a boon to the 
soldier : it was a fraternal response from Washington to the 
firesides of the East, the North, and the West; and I am 
sure that the clerks of Washington have done their full duty 
in these tender and generous services. But I am yet of the 
opinion that the contributions for the army which are sent 
to the United States Sanitary Commission are far more wisely 
bestowed than they have been or can be in any other way. 
I am sorry to say that so much unnecessary waste, delay, and 
expense are incurred by adopting any other mode.* 

* lu speaking of this luattei", the Sanitary Commission use the following 
language, chiefly to introduce an unpublished letter of General Washing- 
ton : — 

''It is hardly just to let this report go forth to the public without a more 
distinct reference to the deep and earnest, resolute and abiding spirit of 
patriotism in the women of the country of which the Commission daily re- 
ceives more tangible evidence than can be convej^ed in words. From a 
backwoods neighborhood, for instance, comes a box containing contribu- 
tions of bedclothing and wearing-apparel from sixty women and children, 
the invoice running thus: ' One pair of stockings from the widoio Barber; 
one quilt, two bottles currant loine, one cheese, 31 rs. Barber; two pillow- 
cases and one 23ai'>' stockings, Jane Barber; one p>a{r stockings and one 
handkerchief, Lncy Barber ; one pair mittens and Robinson Crusoe, Jede- 
diah Barber;' and then follows the list of contributions of another 
family. A few devout words only are commonly added to such a list, but 
they imply that the donors are ready to give all they possess if it shall bo 
needed to maintain the inheritance of our fathers. Blankets worn in the 
Revolution, and others taken in the last war with England, heirloom linen, 
with great-grandmothers' hand-marks, and many family treasures, are 
sent as free-will offerings, with simple prayers that they may contribute to 
the comfort of some defender of liberty. To the same end, the first ladies 
of the land, if any are entitled to that appellation, have, without cessation, 
during all the hot summer, been engaged daily in dry, hard, plodding 
■work, sorting, marking, packing goods, and carrying on extended and 
tedious accounts and correspondence with the precision, accuracy, and 



140 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

regularity of trained mercliants. In all there is little of romantic en- 
thusiasm, but much, and, as the months pass, more and more, of deep- 
seated, abiding, self-s-acrificing resolution. It seems as if the women were 
just now beginning to feel how much they love their country ; and the 
inquiry, ' How can we best do something for the army ?' is coming from 
every quarter, — from the border slave States as well as the free. That it is 
important that this desire should be gratified, and with judicious economy 
directed where it will most truly aid, however slightly, the strength and 
comfort of our soldiers, there can be no question. Although our volun- 
teers are, as compared with the soldiers of other armies, generously paid, 
few large armies of modern times have been as little influenced by mer- 
cenary motives. The gifts which, especially when sick and wounded, the 
men have sent to them from the women at home, can but have an en- 
nobling influence upon them ; and the aid given in this manner to the army 
must create, in all those from whom it proceeds, an interest in and sym- 
pathy with the army and with its objects which will prepare them con- 
stantly for greater sacrifices and more resolute devotion to the Govern- 
ment, should it be needed. How well Washington understood this, the fol- 
lowing letter, written by his own hand at a time when he must have been 
overloaded with business of the grandest importance, gives evidence. It 
has never before been published. 

'' Co^iy of a Letter from General Washington to Mrs. Baclie [Daucjhter of 
Franklin). 

" Head-Quarters ix Bergen, N. J., 14th of July, 1780. 

"Madam : — I have received with much pleasure — but not till last night — 
your favor of the 4th, specifying the amount of the subscriptions already 
collected for the use of the American soldiery. 

" This fresh mark of the patriotism of the ladies entitles them to the 
highest applause of their country. It \s impossible for the army not to 
feel a superior gratitude on such an instance of goodness. If I am happy 
in having the concurrence of the ladies, I would propose the purchasing 
of coarse linen, to be made into shirts, with the whole amount of their 
subscription. A shirt extraordinary to the soldier will be of more service 
to him than any other thing that could be procured him ,• while it is not 
intended to, nor shall, exclude him from the usual supply which he draws 
from the public. 

*' This appears to me to be the best mode for its application, provided it 
is approved of by the ladies. I am happy to find you have been good 
enough to give us a claim on your endeavors to complete the execution of 
the design. An example so laudable will certainly be nurtured, and must 
be productive of a favorable issue in the bosoms of the fair, in the sister 
States. 



OF THE REBELLION. 141 

'' Let me congratulate our benefactors on the arrival of the French fleet 
off the harbor of Newport on the afternoon of the 10th. It is this 
moment announced, but without any particulars, as an interchange of 
signals had only taken place. 

" I pray the ladies of your family to receive, with my compliments, my 
liveliest thanks for the interest they take in my favor. 
""With the most perfect respect and esteem, 

"I have the honor to be, madam, 

" Your obedient and humble servant, i. 
"George Washington." 



142 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XX. 

The Dark in the White House. 

"WuxUE Lincoln is dead!'^ Everybody in Wasliington'i 
knew Willie, and everybody was sad. Sad, — for it seemed 
hard for the noble and brilliant boy to be taken away so early, 
while the sun was just gilding the eastern mountains without ( 
a single cloud, and he could look down the sweet valley andll 
see so far into the future. 

Sad for her who held him as one of the jewels of her home- 
coronet, dearer than all the insignia of this world's rank.! 
That coronet was broken. It might still dazzle and grace, 
but it could never be the same coronet again 

Sad for the master of the Executive Mansion. There wa^fe 
weight enough pressing on that tired brain, — sorrow enough i 
pressing on that great heart. With the burden of a mighty 
republic on his shoulders, — a republic betrayed and wounded 
in the house of its friends, — a republic that had cost so much 
and become so dear to its own true children, and in whose 
prosperity the hopes of all men " who waited for the consola- j|^ 
tion" of the nations were bound up, — a republic for whose 
safety and triumph God, angels, and all good men would I 
eternally hold him responsible, — it seemed to us all, when we i ^ 
heard the news of the boy's death, that even Heaven's own 
sweet fountain of mercy had dried up 



It was a wild winter night; but I desired once more to see 
how far the process of Willie's embalmment had gone; and, as i 
Dr. Brown wished to make one more visit to the President's 
House that night, I took his arm at a late hour, and we walked I 



OF THE REBELLION. 143 

up together. The wind howled desolately; angry gusts struck 
us at every corner; tempest-clouds were careering high up in 
the heavens. The dead leaves of the last half-peaceful year, 
as they flew cuttingly against our cheeks, seemed to have 
come out of their still graves to join in the dreadful revelry 
of the Death of the Republic of Washington on the very 
anniversary of his birth; for it was the eve of the 22d of 
February, — the night in which he was born. 

" Is it not among the strangest of things that this event 
should have happened?" 

" No, doctor : I do not so regard it. You remember some 
very striking events that have happened in connection with 
the building we are approaching? — The White House has not 
been any more exempt from trouble than the other dwellings 
of America. Poor General Harrison entered it as a prince 
goes into his palace to rule a great people : in one month he 
was borne from it to his grave. 

^'He who shall be with us and all loyal men hereafter an 
unmentioned name, the occupant of this house by accident, 
and, administering the government without honor, left none 
to regret his retirement, turned parricide, and now rots in a 
traitor's grave. 

"General Taylor, fresh from the fields of his fame as a 
patriot warrior, came here only to pass a few months of ex- 
cited and troubled life and then surrender to the only enemy 
to whom he ever yielded. 

" Fillmore, who also was summoned here by the act of God, 
after acquitting himself most manfully and honorably of all 
his duties, had scarcely vacated this mansion before he was 
called on to entomb the wife of his youth and the mother of 
his children, of whom the one he loved best soon after went 
to the same repose. He descended from this high place to 
become the chief mourner; and his ovation was a funeral at 
Buffalo. 

"So, too, with his successor, w'lo left the new-made grave 



144 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

of liis only son in Concord — killed in an instant — to be in- 
augurated at the CajDitol and enter as a mourner this stately 
mansion. 

^^Yes! how true it is! 'Uneasy lies the head which wears 
a crown/ " 

5f« ^ >!c ^ ^ ;i< 

"Yes, gentlemen/' said Edward, the chief doorkeeper: 
"it is all still in the house now/' 

We entered the Green Room, 

Willie lay in his coffin. The lid was off. He was clothed 
in his soldier's dress. 

Willie had been embalmed by Dr. Charles D. Brown, who 
uses only the process of Professor Sucquet, of Paris, — a pro- 
cess by which nearly all illustrious Frenchmen who have died 
within our times have been embalmed. 

To those who are not fully informed of the process of Suc- 
quet, it may be added that no arsenic or other poisonous 
chemicals are used, but an infusion is made of a fluid without 
mutilation or removal of any portion of the body. In a few 
hours the body begins to grow hard and marble-like; and this 
change continues till petrifaction is complete, — when the body 
becomes a statue, and changes no more for ages. It was by 
this beautiful and only process known to men of science 
worthy of the name, that the body of William Wallace 
Lincoln was perfectly prepared for its final resting-place in 
the home of his happy childhood. 

* * * * One look more at the calm fjice, which still wore 
its wonted expression of hope and cheerfulness, and we left 
him to his repose. * * * * 

The coming storm was clouding the heavens with a deeper 
mourning, and its wild bowlings wrapped "the Home of the 
Presidents" in sadness and gloom. ''God heal the broken 
hearts left there V 



OF THE REBELLION. 145 



XXI. 

Tlie Life of an Army Paymaster for a Day. 

Its adventures and experiences make up some of the 
striking episodes of military life. I thought I could not do 
better by my reader than to give here, just as I got it, the 
following passages from an actual day of paymaster-life, 
furnished me by Major J. Ledyard Hodge, one of the most 
accomplished paymasters of the army. 

The entire authenticity of the record is certain, and the 
raciness of the recital will speak for itself. 

^' Early in the autumn of 1861, I was directed to pay a 
regiment of volunteers near Washington. The payment, for 
some reasons best known to those through whom my order 
came, was to be made immediately; and the sum of seventy- 
five thousand dollars was handed to me at the same time as 
the order. 

"It was then in the days when 'greenbacks' were un- 
known, and the money I received was good, solid gold and 
silver, fresh from the Mint. 

^' Being at that time a paymaster of about three weeks, 
standing, and as unaccustomed to the possession of seventy- 
five thousand dollars as a midshipman to the society of ad- 
mirals, I felt no small responsibility for the safe custody of the 
treasure, and considerable anxiety as to the proper disburse- 
ment of the money, to be correct in my payments to the 
soldiers and watchful for the security of my bondsmen. 

" The rolls were given me about two o'clock in the aftei- 
noon ; and, aided by my equally inexperienced clerk, T worked 
at them faithfully all that evening and late into the night. 

13 



146 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

'^ My first determination was to remain on guard over the 
money till morning, with a loaded revolver in my hand, and 
the doors of the house all locked up to the third story, in 
which I roomed. However, I comiDromised with my con- 
science by throwing myself down for a nap alongside the 
chest* the doors locked, the light burning, and the revolver 
within reach. 

'' Many a time since then have I slept soundly with twice 
and three times the amount I then had, in a wooden chest, 
with a whole division around me, recruited from the miscel- 
laneous characters that roam the streets of our big cities, and 
I alone in a canvas tent, with only a single sentry outside, 
whose bayonet might be the very instrument to pry open my 
box or silence my resistance. 

"But that night, in a secure house, in the midst of a 
guarded city, my rest was any thing but sound. If I slept, it 
was to dream of robbers carrying off the chest; if I remained 
awake, I fancied every sound of the night was the attempted 
breaking open of a window or door. 

" Morning at last was gladly welcomed, v>dth a most deter- 
mined resolution that before another night I would convert 
as much as possible of my precious metals into soldiers' re- 
ceipts, which, however valuable they might be to me, would 
hardly tempt any one else to appropriate them. 

" The pay-rolls were shockingly imperfect; for the regiment 
was a new one, and the ofiicers, if possible, less acquainted 
with their duties in making the rolls than I in paying on 
them. I would liave liked to remain in town a day, to ex- 
amine and compare the rolls more carefully, and obtain from 
more experienced officers information and advice on the 
hundred questions concerning pay, always necessary to be 
determined when a regiment is paid off, and more especially 
when that regiment is receiving its first payment after enter- 
ing service. 

"It is then that all the hard questions have to be met and 



OF THE REBELLION. 147 

determined, — that the date of commencement of pay for every 
man of the wliole thousand has to be settled, and a calcu- 
lation of odd days made for every payment, — that the fond 
illusions caused by representations of the recruiting officers 
have to be dispelled, and the privates made to understand 
that they are not all to receive the pay and allowances of a 
'major-general commanding a separate army in the field,' 
double rations included, — that officers discover that they do 
not draw pay from the date they agreed to take commissions 
as colonels and majors, but only from the time the United 
States agreed to receive them as such, — that it is clearly de- 
monstrated to the assembled company that it is not entitled 
to three captains and six lieutenants, — and a thousand other 
points, equally difficult to explain satisfactorily to those whose 
pecuniary expectations are blasted by such explanation. 

" Deliver me from ever again making the first payment to 
a volunteer regiment just raised, and not at all disciplined ! 
I would rather, at any time, take four which had been paid 
two or three times, and to whom there was only the regular 
even two months' pay coming, — where every man knows ex- 
actly what he is entitled to, and steps up in his turn and 
rakes ofi" the table his twenty-six dollars with the satisfaction 
of one who feels he has fairly earned .it. 

"All these innumerable questions were proposed and de- 
cided during my three weeks' acquaintance with the laws and 
usages of the Pay Department; and let me here tell any 
unfortunate innocent brethren who think it such a nice thing 
to be a paymaster, that the common or unwritten law of Eng- 
land, composed of customs that have existed from time 
immemorial, and which said customs can only be settled by 
gome three thousand volumes of decisions and reports, is 
plain and simple to the unwritten or common law of the Pay 
Department of the United States Army. 

'^ Fortunately for me, perhaps, I was at that time in com- 
parative ignorance of what was to happen to me. I knew I 



148 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

had my rolls very incompletely made up, but tlie regimeut 
must be paid at once: it might move any hour^ and the 
orders were imperative. So I trusted to having all my 
amendments and corrections made when I reached the 
ground. 

"I had already discovered one great principle, which I 
recommend as of much importance to all paymasters ; and that 
waSj that you can always obtain from the company and 
mustering officers of a regiment any imaginable certificate 
of muster, or other instrument in writing, whereby their pay- 
ment will be facilitated or the amount to be paid increased. 

^-'I once had a set of rolls to pay where the mustering 
officer certified that he and all his men were duly enlisted 
and sworn into the military service of the United States to 
assist in suppressing the rebellion on the 1st day of Febru- 
ary, 1861, — two months before Fort Sumter was attacked. 
I called his attention to this little discrepancy; but he insisted 
that they were ready and willing to enter service then, and : 
he didn't see why they should not be paid from that time. 
I can't say ' 1 saw it' in that light. I have often thought I 
would require some officer, before paying him, to certify that 
he had entered the service on the 4th of July, 1776, and 
been continuously on duty ever since, and was entitled to 
longevity rations accordingly. I have not the slightest doubt 
he would have unhesitatingly given the required certificate. 

" But to return to my trip. Trusting to luck, and un- 
bounded certifying and affidavits, to cover up all defects, both 
of the rolls and the payments thereon, I started on a bright 
Wednesday morning for the camp of the regiment. A four- 
horse ambulance, furnished by the quartermaster, contained 
' Caesar and his fortunes,' which consisted of the specie-chest 
and contents, an overcoat, a revolver, and a haversack with 
cooked rations for two days, and ' whiskey for five.' 

" The escort was composed of my clerk and the driver, — not 
as powerful a guard as the two gunboats and regiment of 



OF THE REBELLION. 14U 

infantry that escorted a party of paymasters up the Tennessee 
River to protect them from any polite attentions on the part 
of John Morgan, but sufficient, as I then thought, for all the 
dangers I was likely to meet. I changed my mind before I 
got back. 

^^As I said, it was in the beginning of September, 18G1, 
when the confused mass of men driven back to Arlington 
Heights from the defeat of Bull Run was just beginning, 
under the organization of General McClellan, to bud out into 
the afterwards celebrated 'Army of the Potomac,' — at the 
time when the rebels held Miner's and Munson's Hills, and 
their flag could be seen from the top of the Capitol, while 
their pickets scoured the country within four miles of Wash- 
ington. 

"A few nights before, a brigade of troops had been 
marched over the Chain Bridge to protect its farther end, 
and were then engaged in building the two forts that cover 
the approaches by the Leesburg turnpike. It was one of 
these regiments that I was sent to pay. 

"We went along beautifully by the river road, and laughed 
at the enemy's cavalry and guerrillas, till we reached the bridge. 
Thereon the hill frowned a heavy battery behind an earthwork. 
At the end of the bridge two brass howitzers promised a full 
allowance of grape and canister to all unauthorized travellers, 
while the flooring of the bridge itself taken up for several 
yards would have made it very inconvenient for cavalry to 
charge over on a gallop. 

"While the flooring was being relaid, I inquired the reason 
of this extra precaution, with a brigade on the other side 
guarding the approaches, and was comforted by the reply 
that the rebel cavalry thought nothing of cutting in behind 
our men and picking up stragglers and plunder close down 
on the river, and that the night before they had appeared 
about half a mile above on the opposite bank and fired at our 
pickets. ^ 



150 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

*'The brigade was about two miles out on the other side, 
and could be reached only by a road cut through the woods 
by the troops, and barely wide enough for a wagon. 

"Pleasant prospect, I thought; but it was broad daylight, 
and there was plenty of company, — commissary-wagons with 
provisions, stragglers hunting their regiments, officers who 
had been in town on leave and without it, sutlers' wagons, 
and country-people, 

" As soon as the bridge was made passable, we all poured 
over. Every thing went on as straight as could be : we didn't 
lose the road but once, and then found ourselves in the camp 
of a New York regiment, who were intensely disgusted when 
they found a paymaster had strayed in among them by mis- 
take, with no intention of favoring them. We nearly upset 
half a dozen times (which is nothing uncommon in roads 
only three days old, with all the stumps of the trees yet stand- 
ing), and were detained half an hour while our team, added 
to the six horses of a Parrott gun, hauled the gun and its lim- 
ber out of the creek, where it had stalled in fording. But in 
due course of time we reached the camp. 

"The arrival had been expected. Good news, like evil, 
travels fast, and no sooner did the ambulance commence 
mounting the hill where the fort was being built and the 
regiment was encamped, than the peculiar welcome always 
extended to a paymaster commenced. Every man in sight 
shouts, 'Paymaster! Paymaster!' as loud as he can bawl, 
and then immediately dodges behind a tent, or wagon, or 
any thing that will conceal him, as if he expected to be shot 
at the next second. 

"I drove directly to the colonel's quarters, had a tent 
pitched alongside as an office, borrowed the necessary camp 
tables and chairs, gave out the company rolls to be receipted, 
and invited the field and staff officers in the mean time to 
step up and be paid. This invitation they were by no means 
slow to accept, and in a short time their pockets were con- 



OF THE REBELLION. 151 

siderably licavier, and their hearts^ I suppose, proportionably 
lighter. 

" When these few payments were made, the company rolls 
not being yet signed, there succeeded an interval which could 
only be properly filled by all hands then present, the chaplain 
included, taking a drink, — first with the colonel in honor of 
my arrival, and next with me, that I might soon call again. 

*' I, of course, made due inquiries as to the military situation, 
and found that we held, or were considered to hold, a very 
strong position on the hill where we were then standing, with 
a beautiful line of retreat over this interesting road I had 
just traversed, and secure communication, especially at night, 
with our base of operations the other side of the Potomac, by 
means of the uniloored Chain Bridge. Our outside pickets 
were about a mile out to the front, and beyond them the 
enemy were reported in strong force at Dranesville, about five 
miles oft', and their pickets and mounted patrols came down 
every night and rode along within a hundred yards of our 
sentries, who had orders not to fire on them, as we were by no 
means anxious to bring on a skirmish, even, till the two forts 
were completed. 

" By the time we had gone through the manoeuvre above 
mentioned, which, as I said, had to be twice repeated to secure 
a thorough knowledge of it, and I had acquired this informa- 
tion of the military position of affairs, the first company 
appeared with its rolls. The regiment had been at work in 
! the trenches of the fort, except two companies out on picket, 
and the men had just ^laid down the shovel and the hoe' and 
fallen in with great alacrity for payment. 

"The usual practice is to give out the rolls to be signed by 
the men, and then bring them back to the paymaster, who 
calls out the names of the men whose signatures he finds on 
the returned rolls, and hands them their money as they step 
up in answer. An ofiicer of the company stands by the pay- 
table, to sec that the proper man comes up when his name is 



152 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

called, and that no personating of sick and absent soldiers is 
attempted. When the officers choose to play the rascal (and, 
I am sorry to say, this is often the case), the United States 
Treasury is apt to suffer; and many a dead man has drawn 
pay, and numerous John Smiths have been mustered, their 
receipts duly given, and the money handed out by the unsus- 
pecting paymaster, the captain gravely standing by and allowing 
the representative of the man of straw to pocket the sum, 
which is soon afterwards divided, in the proportii^n of about 
twenty dollars to the honorable officer and six dollars to the 
honest soldier. 

"Every one that has been in any way connected with our 
army has, I suppose, seen a regiment paid offi The scramble 
among the various companies to get their rolls signed first 
and returned (as they are taken up in the order in which so 
returned), the overwhelming politeness of the sutler to the 
paymaster, — how he offers to supply tables, chairs, whiskey, 
cigars, and all other refreshments for his use, and finally sug- 
gests the propriety of his establishing himself at the pay-table 
in order the more securely to collect his little accounts, — hov/ 
disgusted he is if the paymaster does not see it in that light (and 
no honest paymaster will), and goes off and establishes him- 
self as near as possible, where he hails every man as he passes 
off from receiving his money, and, by alternate coaxing and 
threatening, induces him to pay what he, the sutler, says he owes. 

" Then the long line of men, drawn up in single file in 
alphabetical order; the quaint expressions as they come up in 
turn (for every man considers himself bound to say something 
when he receives his money) ; the yells and shouts if some 
dissatisfied grumbler stops to question and argue about how 
much is due him, and delays the whole line, wdiose eyes are 
fixed on the pleasant prospect ahead, and heads perpetually 
twisted to count the number before them. Every now and 
then some particularly fractious individual undertakes to 
make an extra row, and is marched off by the guard till he 



OF THE REBELLION. 153 

cools down; wliile a general settlement of all debts is going on 
over tlie neighborhood, accompanied by the usual disputes 
and differences of calculations that always attend such closings 
of accounts. 

^'In this manner I paid out money steadily all that after- 
noon till after sundown, and by that time had completed, 
every thing, except the two companies on picket, who would 
not be relieved till the next morning, and one other company, 
whose muster-rolls were so hopelessly incorrect and imperfect 
that there was no remedy but to make them out entirely fresh. 
The captain of the company accordingly went to work, while 
I, at the invitation of the field-officer of the day, who was a 
major of the regiment I was paying, rode out to accompany 
him in his rounds of the pickets. 

"We went about a mile, and then rode along our line. 
They were stationed in the edge of a wood, with open fields 
in front, and about a hundred yards from a country road, over 
which the enemy's mounted patrols deliberately trotted every 
night. Our boys thought it very hard they couldn^t take a 
resting shot now and then, on bright moonlight nights, at 
these impudent vedettes \ but the orders were imperative : so 
they watched them pass by in silence. 

At the time we visited the picket-line, however, it was all 
quiet enough ; not a sign of an enemy to be seen, unless it 
were two or three thin columns of smoke going straight up 
in the motionless air and apparently about a mile off. The 
pickets said they were from the camp-fires of one of the rebel 
outposts. I took their word for it, — didn't think there was 
any use of making a personal examination : so w^e rode back 
to camp. 

"Soon after our return, supper was announced, and I 
joined a mess of some six ofl&cers at the usual bill of fare 'of 
an officers' mess, — cold meat, hot coffee, crackers, and a bottle 
of whiskey. It was as pleasant and well-enjoyed a meal, though, 
as I ever had. Every one was in high spirits : the war had 



154 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



; 



I 



just opened; no one thought of the terrible losses ahead; and 
the scenerjj the bright moonlight night, the breathing of the( i 
fresh pure air, the songs of the soldiers in the adjoining camp, 
— every thing went to make a cheerful, pleasant hour. In less! ^ 
than forty-eight hours the brightest of that party lay dead 
in that very tent, killed in a picket-skirmish; and the swamps 
of the Chickahominy and the fields of Gaines's Mill and Antie- 
tam have left but two more of the six who laughed and 
chatted around that camp-table. 

'^ After supper we strolled up to the unfinished fort, and 
from its parapets, with a full moon in a cloudless sky, we saw 
as beautiful a panorama as any lover of nature could desire. 
Away ofi" beyond us could be tracked the course of the river, 
its stream looking like silver in the light; below, a line of 
camp-fires traced the encampments of the Union troops down 
along the heights in front of Washington, till lost in the dis- 
tance; and in front a solitary sparkle in the whole expanse 
of country seen from that elevation told of the danger and 
enemy to be looked for out of that darkness and uncertainty. 

"Camp-life is one of early hours: tlie maxim of 'early to 
bed and early to rise' is carried out there better than in any 
other place I know of, not excepting the best-regulated 
nurseries. My hotel was my ambulance; and I have since 
been well satisfied with much worse accommodations than 
that second story of a four-horse ambulance, with an overcoat 
and blanket for covering. I had my clerk alongside, the 
specie-box underneath, and a sentry at each end of the wagon: 
so I felt pretty secure, and slept ' like a top,' except every jj 
now and then when a sudden jerk made every thing rattle. 

" For some time I was too sleepy to find out the cause of this !^ 
unaccountable proceeding. Finally an extra shake roused me | 
sufficiently to investigate matters, — when I found that the 'I 
horses were fastened to the pole of the ambulance, and their j 
movements disturbed our slumbers. This was soon remedied; ij 
and again we were all quiet, when the clear ring of a musket- \ 



OF THE REBELLION. 155 

shot sounded as it were close at liand. It is wonderful how 
sound is heard of a clear, calm night. That shot was from a 
sentry a mile off. The rebel patrols, as usual, were taking 
their nightly rounds down the road. The moon brought them 
out sharp and clear against the background of trees behind 
them. The men of the scout were hardened by past immunity/ 
and they rode along laughing and joking. 

'^ Just as they came to the turn of the road where it led 
away from our line, one of them, in reply to a remark from a 

comrade, said, 'D n the Yankees! Who cares for them?^ 

It was too much for our sentry, who from the edge of the 
woods on our side had been watching them. A sharp report, 
the singing of a Minie bullet, and one of the horsemen reeled 
in his saddle, was caught by his friends, and the party dashed 
off; while the word of alarm passed down the line of our pickets 
for miles, and the guards turned out with full expectation of 
seeing a rebel column, only to swear at the unlucky sentry 
and wish him in the guard-house, where he found himself 
early next morning as a reward for shooting a rebel contrary 
to orders. 

" We were out early enough next morning, and at work 
making up the defective company's new rolls. I expected to 
be through and off for town by eleven o'clock. But I reckoned 
without my host. It was ten o'clock before the two companies 
on picket came in: then they had to sign their rolls; and in 
the mean time I paid the company whose rolls had just been 
prepared. I had finished that job, and was commencing the 
other two, when an orderly came up at full speed. 

" 'Where's Colonel ?' He was standing in the tent at 

the time. 

'^ ' Here is a note from General , sir. I was told to 

deliver it as quickly as possible.' 

"The note was short and simple enough. It read as fol- 
lows : — 

'''The enemy are said to be advancing from Dranesville 



156 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Move with your regiment out to the turnpike, and await 
orders there. Immediate.' 

" The next minute the long roll was beat, and every thing 
changed as by magic. I turned round a minute to gather 
up papers and money and tumble them indiscriminately into 
the box. By the time I had finished, the companies were 
forming. The men rushed in from the trenches of the fort 
in their shirt-sleeves, caught their muskets from the stack, 
and took their places, without waiting for coat, blanket, or 
haversack. 

" They cheered and shouted and danced. One would have 
thought they were going to a frolic. 

" Ten months afterwards I saw that same regiment (what 
was left of it) fall in on the morning of the battle of Malvern 
Hills. There was no cheering, no dancing, no laughing. The 
men's faces were set and solemn; they looked round care- 
fully to see that nothing was left, that their blankets were 
well slung, their canteens full, their cartridge-boxes handy. 
Those men who danced and cheered would probably have 
run away had they met an enemy that day. At Malvern Hills 
tlieij fought like devils. 

^' In ten minutes the regiment was oflF. I offered my ser- 
vices as an aid to the colonel, borrowed a horse, and started, 
leaving my box in charge of my clerk and the camp-guard, 
knowing it was useless to try and get it back over the river 
then. 

" We went over the same route I had come out, — down the 
hill over the branch, up through the long cut and newly-made 
road on the other side (how I blessed that cut that evening !)^ 
and out to the turnpike. Here an order was received to move 
out the pike to support the troops who had gone ahead of 
us; and, looking back, we could see a long line of troops coming 
up by the river road on the other side, while the occasional 
flash of a brass gun in the sunlight told of howitzers and 
Napoleon guns in plentiful supply. 



OF THE REBELLION. 157 

"Every one expected there would be a figlit, of course. 
Troops were moving; orderlies were rushing round, hunting 
up the persons for whom they had despatches; aides-de-camp, 
and spare officers generally, rode by, looking as important 
and solemn as if General McClellan had just sent for each 
of them personally to obtain their views and advice. 

" In the mean time the regiment had halted, and the men, 
somewhat fatigued by their rapid march, did not seem so en- 
thusiastic as at first. Those who had left their coats behind 
complained of being chilly; and all regretted their haversacks. 

" Suddenly a rumor ran down the line that it was all a 
hoax ; that a company of rebel cavalry had scared one of our 
patrols, who had rushed in and reported all Johnston's army 
advancing ; that our cavalry had been out to Dranesville, and 
reported nothing there but some violent secesh women and 
pigs, the latter of which they took possession of, not thinking 
the former worth that trouble. 

^' Sure enough, in a few minutes the order came to return 
to camp. I have heard of that celebrated army that swore 
terribly in Flanders. If it beat the portion of the army of the 
Potomac that was out on this excursion, it was a remarkable 
body of men. Such an outjDOuring of oaths, such a variety of 
expressions, all centred on one object, — the man or men who 
gave the alarm, — was never before heard. He was the best- 
cursed man in the country. I will answer for one regiment, 
each individual of its thousand members did nothing else but 
! swear at him from the time the regiment started back till it 
' reached camp, broke ranks, and dispersed for a late dinner. 

" I was not in a saintlike frame of mind myself. I had two 

^companies to pay; it was after three o'clock, considerably; the 

roads and woods would be full of stragglers from the different 

regiments who had been out that day; there was a gradual 

clouding over of the sky, and the moon would not rise till 

after nine. Altogether, I did not admire my ride home tha^ 

night at all. 

U 



158 THE LIGHT AND DA.RK 

'^ However, I hurried througli my payments, made short 
work of the various complainants and questioners who at the 
end of the paying off of a regiment always come up with their 
special cases for explanation and settlement, hardly waited to 
say good-bye to or take a farewell drink with the officers 
who had treated me so kindly, and by five o'clock I was 
rattling down the hill, with as firm a determination of being 
within the corporate limits of the city of Georgetown before 
dark as a man could well have. 

^' Down we went to the branch, and through it, and had " 
just started up the cut that led up the hill on the other side, 
when I saw at the farther end, on the top of the hill, the white 
top of an army-wagon thrown out in relief against the already 
fast-darkening sky. 

" ^Hold on, driver: two wagons can't pass in this road. We 
must haul to one side and wait till that fellow gets by.' 

" So we pulled out and waited. Down came the wagon, 
with wheels locked and teamster swearing as usual ; but after 
it came another, and another, and another ; and so the line 
kept on, till upwards of forty had passed. It was a commissary 
train, with a supply of rations for the whole brigade. For over 
one hour did that train keep us waiting at the foot of that cut. 
Job himself would have lost patience; as for me, I was so 
mad I couldn't even swear. However, it passed at last, 

^^But now it was dark, and we had to go over this wild road 
cut through the woods. Every man we met would know the 
ambulance and what it contained, and I pretty much con- 
sidered my throat as cut already. 

"Innocent people may wonder what I was afraid of, so 
far within the lines of our own army, and within a mile of 
camps where whole brigades of men were posted. Not of the 
rebels, surely? No, indeed; I felt safe enough on that point. 
But there was a certain class of people, called stragglers and 
camp-followers,^ with respect to whose company on a dark night 
and in a lonely place we may well use the petition of the 



OF THE REBELLION. 159 

Litany, aud exclaim, ' Good Lord, deliver us/ They would 
thiuk no more of* robbery and murder than of eating their 
dinner; and a paymaster with a chest of money was a chance 
not to be neglected. 

" 1 tuok the seat alongside the driver, with a revolver in my 
hand, put my clerk behind to protect the rear, made a mental 
promise to shoot the first man that touched the horses' heads, 
and iold the driver to ' make time.' 

'' How I watched as we v>'ent up that hill ! Every stump 
of a tree was a man crouching by the road ; every cricket 
that chirruped was the cocking of a musket ; every bush that 
rustled was a person moving in the undergrowth. Twice we 
met a couple of soldiers going to camp, and each time I ex- 
pected to see the horses' heads seized, and was surprised when 
they passed by as a matter of course. 

" Didn't 1 feel relieved when we came out of that dark, 
uncertain road on to the turnpike ? and wasn't a load lifted 
off my breast when I answered the challenge of the sentry at 
the head of the Chain Bridge, showed my pass, crossed the 
bridge, and felt the ambulance rattling along at a fast trot 
over the river road to Georgetown ? I slept well that night. 
And so ended my first trip as a paymaster.'' 



IGO THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXII. 

The Immolation and Ksdemption of the African Eace. 

Nations pay dear for Liberty. Civilization — the sole object* 
of free government — crystallizes slow. But, once firmly esta- 
blished, it resists the untiring " course of all-impairing Time.'' 

The true civilization, in perfection, is yet to come. The 
world has been filled with false civilizations; and history shows 
that they have not vitality enough to preserve nations from 
decadence. 

It has been just as plainly proved that where slavery ex- 
isted it either destroyed civilization or was destroyed by it. 
The two never could live together. China and Japan are the 
only two ancient Asiatic nations that have preserved their 
early civilization, or even their existence. Slavery never ex- 
isted among them. 

So in Europe : slavery destroyed every European nation that 
maintained it. Grreece, Rome, the empire of the Othman, — 
where are they ? But slavery never existed among the Mag- 
yars or Slavonic nations; nor have they ever been subju- 
gated, much less destroyed. Hungary is a vast and illumi- 
nated nation, and is advancing in civilization; while Russia 
has removed the last encumbrance to her progress by emanci- 
pating twenty million serfs, and is now moving on to complete 
civilization faster than any other people. The Swiss never 
breathed the tainted air of slavery; her people have always 
been free, and in civilization they have lagged behind those 
of no other country. 

At an early period England and France abolished villan-- 



OF THE REBELLION. IGl 

agc^ and followed iu tlic wake of Italy, which was the first of 
the nations to give revival to letters, commerce, and arts. 

So we find that just in proportion as nations emancipated 
themselves from the thraldom of a system of forced or involun- 
tary labor, Justin that proportion they advanced in knowledge, 
wealth, and the elements of endurance. A careful survey of 
truthful history would establish this as a fixed and clearly-deter- 
mined law for the. physical and moral progress and development 
of states. Nations ma}^ grow strong, or rather formidable, for 
a while, under the sceptre of a tyrant and the slave-lash of an 
oligarchy. But such strength is weakness : it does not last. 
It is against all the ordinances of God that it should. 

This is pre-eminently true in our age, when daylight is 
dawning upon all peoples. Darkness has lost its power. 
Universal light is now asserting its dominion. No power 
can contend against it. Darkness must give way. 

So far as my argument on the subject of slavery in the 
United States or elsewhere is concerned, it matters not 
whether the reader accept or not the code of revealed religion 
which I ofier as authority; for profane history coincides with it 
perfectly. There is no sort of conflict between the two. The 
plagues that wasted the vitals of dead nations are just as 
legibly inscribed on their tombs, for their readers, as they 
were on the pages of prophecy before the events took place. 
God alone writes history before it happens. Both records are 
so clear that he who runs may read; and the wise and good 
man who reads either will run to rescue his country from 
the curse which God has chained to the chariot- wheels even 
of the mightiest empires which dare to make war on the 
eternal principles of justice which support his empire. 

Go where we will, from the Pillars of Hercules to the gates 
of the Oriental morning, — 

" Rude fragments now 
Lie scatter'd where the shapely column stood. 
Their palaces are dust." 

14* 



162 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Journey througli the home of the Saracens, — a race of 
scholars and warriors, — 



"Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps; 
Her stones of emptiness remain ; 
Around her sculptured mystery sweeps 
The lonely waste of Edom's plain. 
^ >ic * * * * 

"Unchanged the awful lithograph 
Of power and glory undertrod, — 
Of nations scatter'd like the chaiF 

Blown from the threshing-floor of God." 

5}c ;K * * * * 

Let US calculate tJi>€ debt icJiich America owes to Africa. 
We can reach something like an approximation to the number 
of Africans or Africano-Americans who have lived and died on 
our soil. We do not propose to enumerate any considerable 
portion of the wrongs we have inflicted on that people, — how 
many we stole from their homes, — how many perished in the 
passage, — how many cruelties and indignities they and their 
descendants have suffered, and are suffering to this hour. 
That were a work for which any created being would find 
himself unequal. It will be found to occupy no inconsider- 
able space in the records of the last tribunal before which the 
human race will be cited to appear. 

We will therefore determine, as accurately as we can, how 
many lives Africa has offered up for this nation. But first let 
us glance at the origin of slavery in the United States. We 
borrow a striking passage from the classic and powerful pen 
of Senator Sumner, who has probably investigated the whole 
African question, in all its relations, more profoundly than 
any other man living, — certainly more so than any other 
American. In one of his orations he draws the following 
picturesque and startling contrast : — 

'^In the winter of 1620, the Mayflower landed its precious 
cargo at Plymouth Rock. This small band, cheered by the 



or THE REBELLION. 163 

valedictory prayers of tlie Puritan pastor, Jolm Robinson, 
"braved sea and wilderness for the sake of liberty. In this 
inspiration our Commonwealth began. That same year an- 
other cargo, of another character, was landed at Jamestown, in 
Virginia. It was nineteen slaves, — the first that ever touched 
and darkened our soil. Never in history was greater contrast. 
There was the Mayflower, filled with men, — intelligent, con- 
scientious, prayerful, — all braced to hardy industry, wlw), 
before landing, united in a written compact by v/hich they 
constituted themselves a ^ civil body politic,' bound 'to frame 
just and equal laws.' And there was the slave-ship, with 
its fetters, its chains, its bludgeons, and its whips, with its 
wretched victims, — forerunners of the long agony of the 
slave-trade, — and with its wretched tyrants, rude, ignorant, 
and profane, 

'who had learn'd their only prayers 
From curses/ •••' ■•'■ ••• * * 

and who carried in their hold the barbarous slavery wliose 
single object is to compel labor without wages, which no just 
and equal laws can sanction. 

''Thus in the same year began two mighty influences; 
and these two influences still prevail far and wide throughout 
the country. But they have met at last in final grapple; and 
you and I are partakers in this holy conflict. The question 
is simply between the Mayflower and the slave-ship.'' 

Beginning with the first importation of Africans in 1620 
(nineteen), we find their increase till 1790, slave and free, 
amounting to 757,363. From 1790 (first census) to 1860 
(eighth census), slave and free, 4,441,730. It is and will 
always remain impossible to determine the number of the 
African race whose ashes sleep in our soil ; but, applying the 
ratio of increase from 1790 to 1860 to the period undeter- 
mined, it is easy to approximate the number. My most care- 
ful estimate renders it certain that the number of persons of 



164 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

African descent who have died in our country cannot fall 
short of eight millions and a half, or nearly twice as many as 
are now living. 

Thus we roll up the figures to thirteen millions, living 
and dead, each one of whom has felt the blighting curse of 
slavery, — more or less of the miseries and degradation which 
are its legitimate and inevitable consequences ! 

This IS the immolation; and it is the most appalling and 
stupendous in the annals of the human race. Leaving out all 
the barbarities attending the capture and ocean-transportation, 
the brutal atrocities the stolen Africans suiFered by a system 
of merciless task-labor under the lash, the maiming and tor- 
ture of nerve and muscle, with the endless category of physical 
suffering, still each one of the mighty host of Africano-Ameri- 
cans — an army of thirteen millions, bond and free, living and 
dead — appears in solemn judgment against his individual 
oppressor and against the whole nation. The one has perpe- 
trated the murder, and the Grovernment has stood by and con- 
sented unto his death, and held the garments of those that 
slew him. 

What are the counts in this terrible indictment? 

1. The annihilation of home, whose charities are just as 
dear to the lower as to the higher classes of beings. Torn from 
their continental homes and transplanted to a new world, they 
should at least have had a chance to strike their roots into a 
stranger soil. But cupidity, accident, or caprice tore the plant 
up by the roots, and, with comparatively few exceptions, sub- 
jected it to a new and trying process of acclimation. 

2. The annihilation of marriage. This sacrilegious blow 
at the first, the holiest, and the dearest of all God's institu- 
tions struck the race. It cast the deadliest blight which can 
fall on man. It made more bastards in America than ever 
lived elsewhere under heaven. 

3. The annihilation of light. This means the impious in- 
auguration of heathenism in the very garden of God. No 



OF THE REBELLION. 165 

home, no wife or children he can call his own ! Can a higher 
insult be offered to a man made in the divine image and fur 
whom the Son of man died ? Oh, how incomparably blessed 
in the contrast was the Thracian slave dragged to Rome to 
make, in the arena, a holiday for the slaveholders of the 
Eternal City! He left at least a home, wife, children. 

"I see before me the gladiator lie : 
He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony. 
* -;•:- * -;■:- His eyes 

Were with his heart, and that was far away : 
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize, — 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay. 
There were his young bai'barians, all at play, — 
There was their Dacian mother, — he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday ! 
All this rush'd with his blood : shall he expire, 
And unavenged? Arise! ye gods, and glut your ire!" 

I am fully aware that a fallacy will be alleged against this 
argument, — that a demurrer will be entered against each and 
every count in the general indictment. It will be said, — 

1st. That through slavery and the slave-trade alone have 
any portion of the African race been introduced to the light 
and blessings of civilization. This is a mean and blasphemous 
subterfuge. Just as though any such idea ever mixed itself 
up with the thoughts of the slave-vampires of the African 
coast ! Just as though the century-protracted efforts of the 
Saracens to overthrow the religion of Christ were worthy of 
praise because they brought Christendom to its feet, in the 
vindication of Christianity! As soon should the sight of the 
fair-haired Angli boys brought to Rome and sold as slaves, 
and thus become the occasion of the introduction of the gospel 
into Britain, have justified the kidnappers who did the nefa- 
rious work ! As soon plead pardon for the traitor of all the 
ages for selling the Man of sorrows, because " when he bowed 
his head on the cross he dragged the pillars of Satan's king- 
dom to the dust." 



166 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

2d. Tliey have risen far higher here in the scale of physical I 
comfort. This I deny. They have not, as a community, 
enjoyed as much physical comfort as the wild beast in his \ 
lair, or the cattle on a thousand hills. By no means has^ 
their animal condition approached that of the native African 
tribes. 

I fully believe — yea, I certainly know, and I believe and 
know it more profoundly than any slaughterer of men — that 
the wrath of man shall be made to praise God, while the ; 
remainder thereof he will restrain. But let no man, who has 
ever been a willing party to the awful crime we are speaking 
of, come forward now, while daylight is breaking over Africa, 
and claim any participation in the glory which is coming. 
For this dawn such men never longed; they never contem- 
plated that rising sun with any exultation. j 

And yet how nobly has Africa earned the boon of civilized 
life ! She has from the earliest ages been the slave of the 
nations. All men who had ships went to her coasts and sailed 
up her great rivers to steal her children. The Egyptians 
lashed them to their toil, in the valley of the Nile. The 
Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and the Arabs stole them 
from the Mediterranean coast. The Portuguese, the Spanish, . 
the Dutch, the English, kidnapped them by the hundred 
thousand on the coast of the Atlantic ; and, last of all, — as 
late as within the memory of men now living, — the African 
slave-trade constituted the most profitable branch of the 
commerce of New England. 

The blessed light of civilization which had irradiated every 
other continent never illuminated Africa. Great empires had 1 
been founded on the African coasts, — the arts that exalt 
and embellish life had been carried and cultured there by the i 
Pharaohs, the Alexanders, the Hannibals, — the Arab, the 
Saracen, the Moor, and the Briton ; but it was not for the 
poor African. Light, which came to all others, came not to 
him. Every empire ever founded in Africa was cemented I 



OF THE REBELLION. 167 



by the blood of her helpless people. But the day of her 
emancipation has come. 

She has waited for it over three thousand years. God has 
accepted the sacrifice. The indications of Providence are too 
plain to be mistaken. No unknown portion of the globe has 
been so thoroughly explored during the present century. No 
nation has ever been so ready to receive Christianity and the 
arts of peace. No one can more readily be brought into the 
family of nations. No country ever had so many missionaries 
ready to carry to a benighted continent commerce, agricul- 
ture, manufactures, education, and the light of everlasting 
truths. 

All hail, then, Niobe of the nations ! 

^' Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trem- 
bling; . . . thou shalt no more drink it again. '^ 

" Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Grentiles^ and set up 
my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in 
their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their 
shoulders.'^ 
|» "Ye shall be redeemed without money." 
- "Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not 
remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy 
Maker is thine husband, . . . and thy Redeemer the Holy 
One of Israel.'' 

" thou afHicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, 
behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy 
I foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows 
i of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of 
pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the 
Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. . . . 
Thou shalt be far from oppression ; for thou shalt not fear : 
and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.'' 

"Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: 
whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy 



168 THE LIGHT AND BARK 

^' For I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them 
in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my 
garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of 
vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is 
come/' 

^^ Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." 

"I the Lord have spoken it/'* 

* *' And we may see in all this that law of compensation which God 
vouchsafes the wronged and suffering for all their woes and suffering. 
After being afllicted by nigh three centuries of servitude, God calls chosen 
men of this race from all the lands of their thraldom, men laden with gifts, 
— intelligence and piety, — to the grand and noble mission which they only 
can fulfil, — even to plant colonies, establish churches, found missions, and 
lay the foundations of vmiversities along the shores and beside the banks 
of the great rivers of Africa, so that the grandeur and dignity of their 
duties may neutralize all the long, sad memories of their servitude and 
sorrows." — CrummelVs Future of Africa, p. 127. 



OF THE REBELLION. 169 



XXIII. 

Office-Holders as they are, and how they should be. 

Our republic has a great many sins to answer for that 
she never committed. The republic ^^cr se has always been 
right. It is unfortunately true that her children have too 
often been wrong. 

" Your system of government/' said Gruizot to me, on a cer- 
tain occasion, ^'is perfect as an ideal. It is only necessary to 
have you live up to it." 

"Yes; but you may pass the same criticism on the Naza- 
rene Faith. Christianity is a perfect system: — its members 
are often mperfect. And yet you do not doubt that it will 
yet conquer the world." 

It is very plain that the last two generations have taken 
very little pains to understand the government of the United 
States. Not one voter in a hundred ever read the Constitu- 
tion; not one in a thousand ever felt how much that Consti- 
tution was worth. We are beginning to learn it now. It will 
take some time to read the lesson. We must go through the 
fire. We attach most value to those possessions which we 
came dearly by. From the first altars went up a pure flame 
of patriotic devotion. There was very little sham in those 
days. All through our early history was the clear ring of the 
hammer of the real blacksmith ; and that ring can be heard 
yet. 

Here is our curse. Our old blacksmiths are dead, and 
most of their nephews and grandchildren have been made 
brigadier-generals. God save us ! 

But he must do it by fire. Let the storm come : the true 

16 



170 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

metal can stand tlie alembic test. We have had amalgams 
enough, — quantum ad svfficit. Let us have a pure and good 
nation hereafter, or none. With this spirit, and in this 
spirit only, can we safely and surely render back to Grod 
(when we die) the sacred heritage we got from our ftithers. 

Now to one point. Who is a good soldier ? Who can help his 
country now? 3L:re shoulder-straps can never get us out of 
our trouble. Heads and hearts alone can save us. Neither 
will be wanting, for the exigency invokes both, and both will be 
forthcoming. So grand a nation must not — cannot — perish. 

How wrong we were to allow ourselves to get into this 
enormous trouble ! how wrongly we went to work to cure it ! 

From sheer thoughtlessness, the brave men of the nation 
rushed to the rescue. Brave men saw only a breach in our 
walls : they must fill it. «- 

But every selfish man, every politician, every trickster and 
trifler, saw a chance to ''make a spec" out of it, and every 
Governor of a State and every secretary was besieged night and 
day for a commission : — "my son,'' or " nephew," or "a parti- 
cular friend of mine," "must be looked after." No matter for 
the old country ! — no matter for the flag ! — no matter for the 
sanctified souvenirs of our origin, nor the holy dead of the 
olden time. My son, or nephevf, or friend, " must have a 
commission." 

What came of all this? Whole cohorts, rank and file, were 
led to indiscriminate slaughter by incompetent officers! The 
nation has worn mourning over this. 

I^urther : not less than a thousand or two of these shoulder- 
decked gentlemen are gazetted as deserters to-day. If the 
private does this, he is punished by military law; and the 
penalty is an instant and ignominious death. 

Shoulder-straps escape death, — and they are not often 
enough cashiered; nor has one of them been shot or hanged 
yet. Talk about Mr. Lincoln's severity ! He has been breath- 
ing the "gales of Araby the Blest" over this rebellion, instead 



OF THE REBELLION. 171 

of burying its aiders and abettors in a common sepulchre. 
Mercy ! Lincoln has shown enough for the most merciful 
Hemp is the only quality he has lacked. It must be confessed 
he is a poor headsman. 

The great lack of the war has been the want of heroic 
dedication to the country. With this dedication, we are in- 
vincible; without it, we are lost! 

I must say that, highly as I respect, esteem, and admire 
the true fighting officer of this contest, I would still rather 
be the admirer and historian of the rank and file. 

The Government of this country belongs to its people, and 
this people will take care of it. If all goes well, it is all well. 
If things go wrong, stand from under. A general who cannot 
win must give way to a man who can. An administration that 
cannot crowd the war to a triumphant and glorious termina- 
tion must give way to the people. 



172 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXIV. 

Scenes and Sayings in the Hospital. 

The scenes of the war which have brought out the finest 
heroism of the American character have been in the hos- 
pitals. 

My distant readers will have heard or hnown more or less 
of the sanitary regime of the army, — by which I mean the 
way to get a soldier into good health again, through the 
agency of the best skill known to the healing art. 

We have had to improvise hundreds of hospitals. It is 
only in our principal cities that we have had instant facilities 
to accommodate completely the sick and wounded. Thus, after 
the principal battles in the neighborhood of Washington, of 
Bull Run, Ball's Blu£f, Winchester, and Antietam, we have 
had men brought in in long trains of ambulances by the hun- 
dred, of a morning, in every stage of suffering which attends 
fractured limbs and gunshot- and shell-, sabre- and bayonet- 
wounds, in literally thousands of forms. 

By an act of the President, which met with the entire 
approval of those who knew the circumstances, most of the 
churches in Washington and Greorgetown were taken posses- 
sion of for the sufferers; and I am quite sure that when we 
saw the poor fellows carried in and laid down before these 
altars of God, it was the universal feeling that it was no 
desecration of the temples that had been consecrated to the 
worship of our Father in heaven. 

It was with a melancholy and yet with a coveted pleasure 
that we looked upon such scenes. When a groan escaped 
from a suffering man^ it was an exception to the rule; for not 



OF THE REBELLION. 173 

one in a liundred made a complaint; and there was infinite 
relief and satisfaction in seeing the surgeons proceed to their 
humane but exhausting labors. 

In going to my accustomed place of worship, and finding 
that where every seat had been, a suifering soldier lay, and 
seeing no priest at the altar, it seemed to me that in the best 
days of a primitive Christianity no temple had ever been con- 
secrated to holier purposes. The ministers of Christ had 
descended from the altar to carry their sublime precepts into 
practice, and, like Good Samaritans, were pouring oil into the 
wounds of the suifering. 

The complete dedication of the Washington clergy of all 
denominations to this sublime work aiforded to many thou- 
sand sick and wounded men the most touching and effective 
illustrations they had ever witnessed of the beneficent spirit 
of the religion of the Captain of their salvation. I have 
seen the fruit of such ministrations of kindness and benevo- 
lence, — the stalwart man who lay helpless as a child, stripped 
of all the pride of his strength, — a man who but a few hours 
before would have treated any allusion to the retributions of 
another life with levity or a sneer, — now softened by suifering 
and won by sympathy, greeting with cheerfulness the reading 
of any of the words of the Savior, and conversing with 
freedom about his own soul. 

•But here, as elsewhere, the easier and more felicitous 
triumphs of divine truth are made with the young. 

^ ^i ^ ^ ^ ^ 

The following touching scene, which was witnessed in a 
hospital at Memphis, can be relied upon as authentic : — 

"We came to the body of a non-commissioned ofiicer, — a 
fine, large man, — who during the last few hours had become 
insane. The bone of his thigh was shattered by a ball, so high 
up that amputation could not be performed : so nothing was 
offered him but to lie there and die, — watching the terrible 
hues of mortification come upon his limb, feeling the horrible 

15* 



174 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

poison steal up towards his vitals, grasping and deadening 
new tissues each hour. It proved too fearful for even the 
strong man, who to his physicians had uttered no cry or com- 
plaint; and his mind fled for relief to insanity. As we ap- 
proached, he fixed a pair of cold, despairing eyes upon us, and 
exclaimedy pointing back over his shoulder, ' Do you see him, 
— Old Death, there, — sitting on the head-board and laughing ? 
A grim army joker, in truth. The other night I felt a cold 
touch, and it woke me. The moon flung in a bar of light, 
and I saw Old Death feeling of my wound. The icy touch 
numbed it; and the next time I woke, his hand was closer to 
my body. So it goes ; and he will soon be pulling on my 
heart-chords.' The maniac then stopped, as if for the pur- 
pose of reflecting, and during our stay would part of the 
time be musing, part laughing, occasionally breaking out with 
the exclamation, ^I plead to him that they would be lonely 
at the old home. A wife and child are pleasauter than a 
tomb.' 

"And so we left him, — the utter corruption, the rottenness 
of the tomb, and the vitality of a great man, joined in one 
being, grappling upon the hospital-bed. Life, with the full, 
strong pulse of thirty years, had marshalled its forces, been 
defeated, and was retreating upon its citadel, pursued by the 
decay-growth of a few days. The arteries would soon, stung 
by the poison-tide, stagnate and block up the gates of the 
heart. His name was C. P. Dunster, from Illinois, I believe; 
but the regiment he belonged to I have forgotten." 



A noble young fellow in one of the hospitals had been in- 
jured by the passage of a shell near his head. He scarcely 
thought of it at the time. But shortly after, a solid shot 
carried his left arm away. He was well treated on the field, 
and sent on to Washington for recovery. Here the efi'ect of 



OF THE REBELLION. 175 

the concussion of that screaming shell began to show itself 
on the brain. He became delirious. 

Watching by him one night, I took down some strange 
ravings : — " No ! I won't go home till the Union is safe. I 
had rather die here by the roots of this tree, and dig my 
own grave, than have any croaker in Wisconsin say that I 
let the old flag drop. Not I ! Bring it out ! Let me see 
it once more ! I'm ready for the last charge ! I don't care 
how strong they are ! I only want one more chance at the 
rebels." And, lifting himself in bed, he plunged forward. I 
caught him, and laid him down. A quiver went through his 
body, and the pulse stopped ! — 

"He slept his last sleep, — he had fought his last battle : 
No sound could awake him to glory again." 



Another youthtul soldier, slowly coming up from what he 
called " that Chickahominy fever." — 

''Don't you ever get disheartened ?" 

''Yes, — once in a while, about ?»^.se(/', while lam alone here 
after midnight. It seems so long before daylight. I never 
was sick before. But disheartened about our great cause ? 
Never! If I live, I shall stand by the flag. Why shouldn't 
/do it as well as any other man? But if all our army sinks 
into the earth, the cause is just as safe as ever. God cannot 
afford to let this country go down.^' 



Another still, in the same ward: — 

A vigorous man, with both legs off, but doing well. "God 
is always right, and we are generally wrong. * * * We are 
not ready yet for restoration. We are not ready yet for the 
redemption which I am sure is coming. * '''' * I went with 
the Breckinridge party in the last election, for I thought they 
would stand by the Union as it was when Clay and Webster 



176 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

died. But I was awfully mistaken. They never wanted to 
remain with ?i.s. They embraced the first plausible pretext for 
separation. The leaders of this rebellion deliberately cheated 
and deceived us. General Butler, who presided over their 
convention, was among the first to discover that he and all 
the old Northern Democrats had been duped, — cruelly, foully, 
meanly duped. * ^' * When we National Democrats looked 
about and found out just where we were standing and where 
the country was falling, we were confronted with the cause, 
the occasion, and the pretext of all this treason and all this 
trouble. * * * The South saw no use in the Union except 
as an instrument for the protection and spread of slavery. 
Mankind had taken a very different view. We considered 
liberty the rule, and slavery the exception. The world, as a 
human family, had got tired of servitude. It was supposed 
that America was too large, too free, for any thing but free- 
dom. * '^ * We had to come to the conclusion that it wouldn't 
pay to keep slavery up any longer; and I believe this is 
the feeling generally in the Army of the Potomac. * "^ * So 
far as I am concerned, slavery must hereafter take care of 
itself." 

Jfi ^ ?JC -rfx ^ *fC 

The battle of Williamsburg was over, — the rebels driven 
from the field, the war-storm hushed, and the sad duty of 
burying our dead and caring for our wounded remained to be 
performed. 

Grroping our way through the darkness, we came upon the 
body of a pale, slender, beardless boy, a member of Company 
I, 37th Regiment, New York Volunteers, — one of hundreds 
who left their beautiful hill-girt homes in Cattaraugus county 
to battle for their country's integrity. We raised him up; he 
was not dead, but badly wounded. 

On carrying him to our improvised hospital, the surgeon 
pronounced his wound mortal. No sigh nor groan escaped his 
lips; although, from the nature of the wound, he sufi'ered 



OF THE REBELLION. 177 

greatly. As firm and brave as but a few hours before, when 
he met the euemy, he now met the great conqueror, Death. 

When told he must soon die, and asked if he desired 
to send any message to his family, his mild blue eye lit up 
with unnatural fire ; and, after a moment's pause, as if recall- 
ing his departing senses, he exclaimed, — 

"Tell them I died fighting for the Stars and Stripes." 
These were his last words ; and in a few moments Lafayette 
Morrow, the boy-hero, was at rest.* 

^ -^ ijt :^ :^ ^ 

During the desperate fight at Williamsburg, while the 
color-company of the 57th New York went rushing through 
the blood and over the bodies of the dying and dead to take 
the place of a New Jersey regiment which had fallen back 
half slaughtered, one gallant fellow, who had been carried to 
the rear, was seen leaning against a tree, swinging one bleed- 
ing arm, while the other hung shattered and dangling by his 
side, screaming out, in his wild death-agony, "There goes 
the old flag ! Hold her up, boys, forever !" And he fell, a 
senseless, gory mass, at the roots of the tree. 

In returning from the field from which the rebels had been 
driven, two men from the same regiment left the ranks to 
look after the dead soldier. They dug his grave where he 
lay; and long before now "the oak hath shot his roots abroad 
and pierced his mould.'' 

■•■This fact is related to me by one of the noblest young assistant sur- 
geons in the army. 



» 



178 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXV 

The Doom of tlie Eebellion. 

How is it to end ? 

As all tlie other great wrongs of the world have ended, — 
not in blood merely ; for men spill that freer than water over 
trifles, — but by exterminating the power and the icorks of the I 
icrong-ilocr, and, if necessary, the wrong-doer himself. 

This does not mean half as much as God means when he \ 
has traitors to deal with. History, the sacred chronicler from | 
the grave, is Heaven's secretary. Open his books, and see how 
the Ruler of nations treats bad leaders of communities and 
empires. | 

What became of a polluted world when its Maker could find | 
no place in his great heart to screen or hold its bad people j 
any longer ? 

He drowned them ! 

What became of his own chosen people, for whom he had ; 
wrought miracles by land and water, to whom he had com- j 
mitted his holy tabernacle, — the evidence of his divine pre- | 
sence by night and day in the everlasting flame, that never | 
ceased to burn over the altar of his holy temple, telling that 
the Protector of Israel was there, — his chosen people, on whom 
HE had lavished the wealth of his kingdom, and to whom he 
at last gave the most precious gem in his diadem, his ^^eter- 
nally begotten and well-beloved Son" ? Read the fate of that 
chosen people wherever the winds of heaven sweep, and, innu- 
merable although they be, they are among the nations only 
the chaft' on the summer threshing-floor. 

What became of the Egyptian tyrant after he rejected the 



or THE REBELLION. 179 

counsels of the great Hebrew statesman and set himself up 
against Moses' "proclamation of emancipation" ? 

Drowning again. 

AVhat became of Sodom and Gomorrah ? Brimstone and fire. 

What became of Babylon and Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon, 
and all the great empires and states of antiquity? Any Sun- 
day-school scholar can answer these questions. They did 
UToiKj ; they j^^^t'sisfed in wrong ; they insulted God and 
ground his helpless ones into the dust. They were foretold 
their fate ; they met it, and wound up their history, falling 
charred corpses into their sepulchres; and future Layards and 
Champollions have busied themselves in digging away with 
Birmingham picks and spades, to heave up from the ashes 
of ages some few remains of these triflers with '^the divine 
humanity." 

Modern history shows the same story; for God is just as 
much the Governor of all the earth to-day as he was before 
the Coesars. No new dispensation has been granted to 
nations. It is graven among the pandects of eternity that 
"the nation that will not serve me shall perish." 

Heaven's code never changes. The decisions of that court 
of final appeals are never reversed. 

Charles I. of England did not understand this philosophy. 
His ignorance cost him his head, from the window of Palace 
Hall. 

Louis XYI. did not understand it; and his head rolled from 
the guillotine in Paris. 

So have a whole regal mob of the oppressors of mankind, 
sooner or later, from Tarquin to Louis, been sent to their 
doom by the swift judgment of Heaven. 

Modern nations have followed the same road as ancient 
empires wherever they have violated the great laws of civic 
prosperity and endurance. They have gone to ruin over the 
5am e beaten track where the dead dynasties of the past had 
eft their bones. 



180 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



No statesman will pretend, be lie saint or sinner, that a 
man or a nation can contend against the Almighty and pros- 
per. Justice and freedom are the fundamental statutes of 
God's system of jurisprudence. Neither men nor nations are 
exempt. These laws never change; and, thank God, we strike 
solid bottom when we are dealing with Him ! 

;!; ^ ^ 5k 5^ sK 

Whatever may have been the pretexts of this rebellion, 
every man who is not wilfully blind saw its immediate object 
in the beginning. But, separation once effected, was not the 
ultimate design equally clear? — the cstahUslimcnt and consolid- 
ation of a colossal meridional empire, stretching from the 
free States of this union towards the south, absorbing Mexico 
and Central America, Cuba, and all the islands of the sur- 
rounding archipelago, and appropriating all the South Ameri- 
can states east of the Andes? 

This empire was to rest on African slavery as its basis, and I 
its wealth and power were to spring from a complete monopoly j 
of cotton and the principal tropical products of the world. i 

Nor would the ultimate achievement have been beyond the ; 
regions of probability, had the leaders been allowed to break ■ 
away from their allegiance and ^'go in peace." \ 

They contemplated nothing impossible in the gradual ab- j 
sorption of these vast territories, partly by arms and partly by \ 
treaties of annexation . They would have been only re-establish- i 
ing African slavery where it had but recently been abolished, J 
more by the shock of revolution than as a reform in the < 
gradual progress of society. They would have encountered \ 
no unconquerable obstacles in the re-establishment of domestic \ 
slavery. Slavery is congenial to the tastes of the Spanish and \ 
Portuguese nations, and in full harmony with the lower civili- j 
zation which exists among their bastard American descendants. | 

Besides, they would have readily found an ally in Cuba, ] 
which, on fair terms, would gladly have joined this gigantic | 
Power, and, asserting her independence, as all the other j 



OF THE REBELLION. 181 

Spanish-American states had done, sprung to the alliance to 
assert her freedom and save her half a million of slaves. 

Stepping on the South American continent, this new PoAvcr 
would have trodden triumphantly over a score of torn and 
shattered republics, on its march to Brazil, where it would 
have found a cordial ally and partner in that vast but youth- ■ 
ful emjiire. 

Thus the only slaveholders and the only slave-empires 
of the earth would have met and reared a structure which 
might once more have arrested for an age the progress of 
mankind, if indeed it had not overwhelmed civilization. 

Something far less strange than this would be had long 
been history. The civilization of ages was overthrown, and 
to all appearances the world's march was arrested for a thou- 
sand years. The combination of barbaric forces has often 
proved for the time too mighty for civilization. Even Christ's 
temples have been overthrown in a hundred nations, and 
thirty generations, embracing uncounted hundreds of millions, 
have ever since been groping in heathen darkness around 
their ruins. Although the mighty stream of human progress, 
an a volume, moves steadily on, yet some of its vast eddies 
move backward before their waters can once more mingle in 
the general current. 

Such a concentration of all the elements of barbaric power, 
with all the irresistible appliances of modern inventions, could, 
by the forced labor of the enslaved and dependent classes, 
rear a structure against which not only the puny shafts of 
refined nations would strike in vain, but which would over- 
shadow all other states and rule for a while sovereign of the 
ascendant. 

No meaner vision than this rested on the eyes of the pro- 
jectors of the Southern rebellion. The only difficult step in 
the accomplishment of this stupendous scheme was the Jirst 
one, — secession from the Government of the United States. 
This was to prove an impossibility. All the rest would have 

16 



182 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

followed at half the cost in blood and treasure which the 
South has already expended. The total enslavement of the 
depressed classes, and the creation of a powerful oligarchy of 
coadjutors, would have rapidly crystallized all the incoherent 
elements of society throughout all those semi-barharous and 
revolution-devastated countries. Order would have sprung 
from chaos, but it would have been the order which reigns in 
the dungeons of the tyrant; wealth would have been multi- 
plied by magic, but it would have been the fruit of involun- 
tary and hopeless toil. But such did not happen to be the will 
of Heaven. This virgin continent was not destined to so hor- 
rible a prostitution. The clock of Time was not to go back 
again a thousand years. 

^; ^ * :i< ^ * 

All this seemed as transparent to thinking men then as now. 
At the hazard of some imputation of a vanity I should not 
wish to entertain, I will here print two short letters which I 
addressed to Jefferson Davis towards the close of 1861, just 
after he had sent in his message to the rebel Congress : — 

''TO THE CHIEF OF THE SOUTHERN REBELLION. 

" Washington City, December 7, 1861. 

"■ Sir : — After having fled from the gates of the Capitol of 
the republic, you still abuse the patience of mankind by 
maintaining, at a safe distance, the semblance of a power you 
do not possess, and issue proclamations and messages in solemn 
burlesque of all the forms of civilized and free Grovernments. 

" Your last state paper, although the worst of all your politi- 
cal compositions, is entitled to some notice, even at the hands 
of Vanity Fair, chiefly on the ground that it is the object 
of this journal to amuse itself with the folly of the wise and 
the wisdom of fools. 

" After a careful reading of your message, we have not been 
able to detect the motive of its composition. It reads more 
like the nerveless plaint of a sick and disheartened traitor 






OP THE REBELLION. 183 

than the clear and lofrical utterance of a conscientious and 

o 

sagacious statesman. 

'^ It is mainly made up of exaggerated accounts of Confede- 
rate victories, of baseless accusations against the Government 
of the United States and the humanity of its citizens and sol- 
diers, and an equal mixture of defiance of and sycophancy to 
foreign states, with repeated appeals to the providence of the 
Almighty for aid in your Catiline conspiracy, and a gross 
libel upon his Holy Truth. 

" Some few illustrations will sufiice for our present purpose. 

" You say, ' The condition of the treasury will doubtless be 
a subject of anxious inquiry.^ We did not before know that 
you had a treasury. You must long ago have expended all 
the money you stole, and, although in possession of several 
mints, the world understands that you coin your currency 
with the printing-press. You say, 'The Government is 
enabled to borrow money loitliout interest.^ Then you are 
luckier than any empire we have heard from. You propose 
to make your treasury notes a legal tender for debts due 
' corporations and individuals,' and think this will ' enlarge 
the field of their circulation.' This will succeed for a while, — 
at the point of the hayonet. You see a strong point in the 
convertibility of your ' treasury notes into Confederate stock 
at the pleasure of the holder, bearing eight per cent.' Mr. 
President, ' this reminds us of a little story,' as our excellent 
Ptail-Splitter so often good-humoredly says. 

" A certain shiftless husband was always trading dogs, and 
kept a ravenous kennel of them on hand. When the family 
were on the verge of starvation, he got rid of all except Boace, 
a very large Newfoundlander. Finally, at the urgent entreat- 
ies of his good and patient wife, he started off with Boace for 
a market. At nightfall he came back in high glee, and 
announced to his wife that he had sold Boace. The little 
woman was transported. '■ How much did you get for him, 
dearee?' 'Fifty dollars,' responded this prince of financiers, 



184 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

with exultation. ^ Oli, goodee ! goodee ! now we can have - 
something to eat, and Jane can have a new frock ! Oh, dear 
me ! where is the money V ' Oh, my dear, I sold Boace for 
fifty dollars, but I took it in two pups at twenty-five dollars 
apiece/ We shouldn't wonder if the holders of your treasury 
notes would prefer to keep old Boace ! Such finance is worthy 
of the unblushing defender of Mississippi repudiation. You 
know, Mr. Davis, that not one of those bonds will ever be paid 
except in cats and dogs. Remember that Governments can 
trifle with the liberties of people much longer than they can 
with their pockets. 

" You declare that ' the very efforts he [your adversary] 
makes to isolate and invade us, must exhaust his means, whilst 
they serve to complete the circle and diversify the produc- 
tions of our industrial system.' Pretty small circle ! You de- 
spise the labor of free men. Slavery never did and never can 
make a diversified industrial system. Such a system cannot 
live without foreign commerce ; and yours is cut off, and can- 
not be restored until you return to your allegiance. In spite 
of all you say to the contrary, the merchants and journals of 
New Orleans (your great port) say that not three ships have 
entered or left that port for months together; and the only 
evidence that your seaports are not sown with salt is that the 
grass is growing in their streets. 

" Mr. Davis, you ought to have known how terrible a work 
you undertook when you so coolly plotted the overthrow of 
this beneficent Government I If you had been either a sailor, 
a soldier, or a statesman, you would sooner have cut off your 
own right arm than have lifted its puny and shrivelled mus- 
cles to make war against the best and the strongest Govern- 
ment on the face of the earth. 

'^ It would have been in better taste if you had said nothing 
about the barbarities of the war. You began them, and you 
have practised them all. You have turned whole districts into 
deserts, and driven thousands of Union men from their homes. 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. 185 

You have massacred their owners, you have stolen their goods 
and confiscated their estates. They and their sons have been 
dragged into your armies and compelled to fight against the 
republic of their fathers. So far from the course of justice 
liaving been interfered with in the free States, law never was 
more perfectly administered nor justice more fairly dealt out.- 
The whole structure of civil life has stood unshaken and un- 
disturbed. At the South yon know that law, justice, and 
equifij have been utterltj suhverted and overthroivn ! Every- 
body here is safe except traitors ; in the South a Union man 
is a doomed man until the flag of the Union once more floats 
over his dwelling. 

" We knew you were no better lawyer than statesman. But 
we thought you would hardly risk the satire of every jurist in 
the world by such a display of your ignorance of international 
law. You can have read little of the works of English jurists, 
and, if possible, heard less. We leave your opinions on this 
subject to the tender mercies of the law advisers of the crown. 

" For the present we leave you with a few words. It would 
be a deep insult to many true and great men at the South to 
assume that you took the helm by their willing consent. You 
had this advantage, — your presumption made you first in the 
field, and what you lacked in personal merit or public favor 
you made up in audacity. You stood nearest the magazine, 
and you held the match. Others stood aside for your candle 
to go out. Any desperate man could have done the same 
thing with the same success. There was nothing original in 
this mode of doing business. Many a bad man, of not half 
your parts, has played the same trick with better grace. 

" All through your heated, restless life, you have had but 
one object in view, — one goal to win : to make other men 
think better of you than you thought of yourself. Your chief 
misfortune consists in your having tried a job you are not 
equal to. Samson was far luckier ; for when he threw his 
gigantic arms around the columns of the temple of the Phi- 

16- 



186 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

listines, lie dragged the whole structure to the dust. The 
name of the wretch who burned the dome of Ephesus lived 
longer in history than his who raised it. But remember that 
ActaBon was torn to pieces by his own hounds. To-day you 
inspire more terror in the midnight chambers of the South 
than McClellan. Look to your own hounds. When the ven- 
geance which fate has laid up for you, like all other traitors, 
lights upon your head, the ministers of justice will come from 
your own household. The men you have deceived will sit in 
judgment when your day of reckoning comes. Yours." 

No. 2. 

''Washin^gtox, December 21, 1861. 

^'Jefferson Davis, Esq.: — 

"If your Postmaster-Glen eral has overcome 'the formida- 
ble difficulties' you spoke of ' in carrying the Confederate 
mails/ you will doubtless before now have received my first 
letter. Another epistle may reach you before your own 
hounds are unleashed. 

*'I shall look at some of the promises you made to the 
South when you inaugurated a subtle conspiracy which has 
since grown into the proportions of a great rebellion. Like 
many a reckless plotter of mischief, you have evoked more 
elements of trouble than you can manage. While you were 
raising, as you thought, only a storm of wind and fury which 
would grow calm at the bidding of any smart demagogue, 
you found a wild tempest roaring above your head, and 
j3^]olus alone could command the winds back to their caves. 
You have more than once, since you made this discovery, 
said ' you had no conception the thing would ever go so far.' 
This is true. Nor have you now any idea how far it ivill go. 
Your eyes are only partly opened ; you still ' see men as 
trees walking;' — but your eyesight will improve hereafter 
every day. What did you promise the South if she would 
break away from her allegiance ? Independence, sovereignty, 



or THE REBELLION. 187 

and instantaneous recognition by the great foreign Powers 
Your agents went to Europe^ and, with no usher but a cotton- 
bale reeking with the sweat of lashed and unpaid negro 
labor, they tried to force their way into the palaces of empe- 
rors and kings. They were repulsed ; but they still cringed 
and fawned for recognition, till they were spurned with cold 
contempt from every royal ante-chamber in Europe. On the 
very night that the Ambassador of the United States was the 
guest of the Lord Mayor at Guildhall, with her majesty's 
jMinisters at his side, your court-ejected, nigger-driving en- 
voys found more congenial company taking pot-luck in the 
greasy tap-room of Fishmongers' Hall. You have always 
insulted and hated England, because she wanted Mississippi 
to pay her honest debts. Now you crawl to that monarchy 
only to be kicked away as the whining chief of an unsuccess- 
ful rebellion, — as the champion of a peculiar institution 
England hates, and the tawny self- crowned King of Cotton, 
which she no longer wants. Did you read Yancey's letter ? 

"You were luckier with your ^ambassadors' (as you 
acknowledge them to have been) than with your emissaries. 
Mason, Seidell & Co. spared you the further mortification 
of more fawning, more cringing, more crawling, and more im- 
pertinence, as the supple suppliants of kings, by changing 
their voyage to Fort Warren, in sight of Bunker Hill, over 
which you were to crack your slave-lash as the roll of your 
bondsmen was called. 

"You wished to be emancipated from the North, to which 
you had so long paid tribute. You wanted to cut off all inter- 
course with us. We helped you in your glorious work. You 
no longer pay tribute on Lynn shoes : you can't get them ; 
and you go bare-foot, black, white, and mixed. No more 
tribute on Boston ice : you drink tepid water in dog-days. 
No tax on Ohio bacon, — it is worth thirty cents a pound ; on 
Illinois flour, — it costs forty dollars a barrel; on Orange County 
butter, — it brings fifty cents a pound. Your circulating 



188 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

medium must be below par, or these commodities must be 
growing very scarce. 

" You were to cover all seas witli your pirates. How many 
letters of marque have been called for ? You were to open 
the slave-trade. How near have you come to winding up 
slavery itself? Children laugh at the silly dog that lost the 
meat and the shadow too ! You would not sell your pew in 
a "Washington church, for you would need it the next Sun- 
day after taking the Federal capital ! What would you take 
for it now ? You made Montgomery your first seat of govern- 
ment, and you congratulated Greorgia on her great destiny. 
You skinned that neighborhood, and quit for Richmond. 
Virginia was in turn congratulated. You skinned the mother 
of Presidents and scraped her to the bone, — and again started 
with your locust bands for Nashville, which will participate 
in like congratulations and share a similar fate. By this 
time the capitals and States where you hold your locust 
court must have recalled, with empty stomachs and shrivelled 
purses, the Spanish proverb, ' Save me from my friends, and 
I will take care of my enemies.^ 

"You sunk what few ships you had at the mouth of 
Charleston harbor, to keep us from getting in. We took the 
hint, and are sinking a fleet of old whalers, to keep you from 
ever getting out. We do not wish to burn j-our cities, but 
we will exile them from the commercial world; we will blot 
their very names from the maps of the navigator. We will 
open new ports, and build free cities. Thither will flock the 
fleets of all nations, and your slaves shall be our servants. 
You were to send your cotton direct to Europe, and pay no 
commissions to Yankees. We shall save you the trouble; for 
we shall take the commissions and the cotton too ! 

"Jeff Davis! what have you done? Once you stood 
fair among your fellows; your nation put a soldier's sword 
into your hand : you have thrust it into the bosom of your 
mother. You were respected, beloved, and even admired. 



OP THE REBELLION. 189 

The South was prosperous, happy, and secure. Now she is 
bankrupt, miserable, and in peril. She is bound on Procrus- 
tes' bed, and the sword of Damocles is flashing over her head. 
^' The cordon de guerre, which has been steadily spinning 
for you by the hand of Scott from the distafi" of Destiny, 
is now, under the steady nerve and clear gaze of young 
McClellan, slowly but surely tightening its coils around 
you. The ocean is too small even for the furtive flight of 
your ambassadors ; the continent has no desert or cave where 
you or yuLir traitor conspirators can hide. Your sea-ports 
will become Antwerps, — your capitals a by-way, so that no 
man pass through them; your homes will be left desolate; 
you will be buried among the ruins of your peculiar institu- 
tion, on which the world already sees written the doom 

' Of nations scatter'd like the chaff 
Blown from the threshing-floor of God.' 

And you have caused it all. 

* Since him miscall'd the Morning Star, 
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen as far.' 

'' Yours.'' 

The only commentary I shall add to these epistles is taken 
from a portion of a prominent editorial which appeared in 
the Richmond "Enquirer," the beginning of March, 1863, 
fifteen months after the foregoing letters were written : — 

"the third stage or the war. 
" We have fairly entered upon the third stage indicated by 
the President in his message, namely, that of a war for sub- 
jugation and extermination. The people of this Confederacy, 
isolated and shut up from all the world, have now to encoun- 
ter the most horrible and demoniac efibrt for the assassination 
of a whole race that history has yet recorded, or, we believe, 
will ever have to record till history grows gray. For it is 



190 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

not every century, it is not every seon, that shows the world 
a Yankee nation. Yes, the Confederate people has now at 
last to strip for battle. It is a people that must this time 
very literally conquer or die. 

<^ No doubt it would be agreeable to believe that this last 
stage of the war will be soon over, and must end in the 
speedy destruction of our intending murderers. But look 
round the map of the Confederacy, and judge if we can 
soothe ourselves with this belief. In the very heart of the 
country our gallant sentinel of the Mississippi — heroic little 
Yicksburg — has sustained indeed and baffled two tremendous 
sieges ; but a third time her citizens see pouring in around 
them from the North and from the West enormous masses of 
the beleaguering foe; iron floating batteries again crowd 
down upon her ; and even as you read these words two j 
hundred heavy guns may be thundering upon her defences, 
a hundred thousand men may be pressing to the storm of her 
ramparts. Again she will drive them off, perhajDS, and re- 
main the famous maiden city of this hemisphere, the bulwark \ 
of the West. So be it ! But the vision we see on the Mis- 
sissippi does not look very like exhaustion or despair on the 
part of the foe just yet. 

"And, again, look to the mouth of the mighty river. New 
Orleans is not a maiden city, alas ! The base rag that has so \ 
often been rent and trampled before Richmond and before \ 
Yicksburg flies from all the towers of that deflowered city. \ 
Hordes of hungry Yankees, armed to the teeth, sit in the | 
shade of her orange-groves and station negro guards over the \ 
mansions of her noblest citizens. All her best and fairest i 
have to lament every day that their goodly city had not been j 
laid in ashes before it became a haunt of obscene creatures. ] 
No sign of relaxation there! And, but a short way off, j 
Mobile, by the shores of her spacious bay, keeps diligent j 
watch and ward, expecting in the light of each morning sun j 
to see the thrice-accursed Stars and Stripes gleaming through I 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. 191 

the smoke of a bombarding squadron. All along the Gulf, 
and round the coast of Florida, this omnipresent enemy who 
is said to have just been playing his last card is shutting up 
every river and planting his guns on every strong place. 
Savannah, shut in from the sea by Fort Pulaski, in the hands 
of the same inveterate Yankee, listens for the first boom of 
the artillery that is to level her walls with her sandy soil ; 
and Charleston, grimly calm, but with beating heart, stands 
waiting the onset of the great armada. Those few acres of 
old Oyster Point, it seems, already swept and devastated by 
conflagrations, are to be the object and the prize of the most 
potent armament by far that American waters have ever seen. 
This very moment, it may be, the black Monitor batteries are 
steaming between Sumter and Moultrie. No signs of relax- 
ation, or of discouragement and despair, in the enemy here ! 
Pass further, and you will find the whole coast, from Charles- 
ton to Norfolk, and every river to the head of tide-water, and 
every creek and sound formed by the sea-islands, swarming 
with their gunboats and transports, ready to pour in masses 
of troops wherever there is a chance of plunder, bridge- 
burning, and general havoc. 

'^ From Norfolk all around Chesapeake and Potomac we 
are guarded by gunboats, and no living thing (save skulking 
smugglers) sufi'ered to enter or go out. On the Rappahan- 
nock two hundred thousand men wait for a drying wind to 
move ' on to Richmond' once more, led by a genuine apostle 
of extermination. . . . And Northwestern Virginia is 
desolated by Milroy and his men; and Kentucky and the 
half of Tennessee, the richest and fairest lands of all the 
West, are entirely in the clutch of the enemy, while the 
rivers bring them up fleets of transports, and Rosecrans, with 
another large army, threatens to sweep all opposition from his 
path, and join the other brigands who are crowding upon 
Vicksburg. 

"Where in all this wide circuit does the invasion seem 



192 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

to be fainting or giving ground ? All round the border and 
in the very heart of the Confederacy the foot of the enemy is 
planted and his felon flag flies ; and it means subjugation 
and extermination. It is indeed the third stage of the war, 
and, we believe, the last ; but the struggle will be desperate. 
If it be the ' last card/ it is one on which the stake is" life or 
death, honor or shame : either our name and nation will be 
extinguished in a night of blood and horror, or else a new 
sovereignty — the newest, fairest, proudest — will take her seat 
among the Powers of the earth, with the applause of man and 
the blessings of Heaven.'' 



or THE REBELLION. 193 



XXVI. 

Kind Words to Africano- Americans, 

Fellow-Men : — 

The day you have waited for so long has at last come. 

You are all free now, — or you soon will be. Your charter 
has been duly signed by the President of the United States, 
and that deed is ratified in heaven. 

God is always on the right side : he is the everlasting 
friend of freedom. 

Being free, your earthly salvation is put into your own 
hands. While you had a master, he gave you bread, clothing, 
and shelter, such as they were. In escaping the lash, you 
must provide these things for yourselves. You have always 
claimed you could do it, and your friends believe you can. 
What is still better, you have through generations proved 
you could not only support yourselves, but your masters too. 

Now, laying all theories aside, and coming down to practical 
business, think what questions are before you. But first 
let me tell you what is not before you. 

1. You need not give yourselves any trouble about the 
great question of your freedom. It is a 7noral fact. It 
will be an actual material fact sooner by far than you can 
prepare for it. Remember that when the song of freedom is 
once sung its notes will vibrate forever. Slavery is mortal, 
and must die; Liberty is eternal. 

2. Give yourselves no solicitude about the prejudice against 
your color; for that prejudice does not exist in pure and 
generous hearts in such a form or to such an extent as ma- 
terially to interfere with your prosperity and future elevation. 

17 



194 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Let your minds rather be directed to the means you should 
employ for accomplishing the destiny which is now within 
your reach. 

First. Get work as soon as you can^ — any tiling that is 
Tionorahle, — and hegin to lay up money. — If you are idle^ you 
will be despised as vagabonds; if you contract bad habits, you 
will have no friends ; if you commit crime, you will be pun- 
ished without mercy. In no Northern community can you 
expect to escape punishment when you do wrong. The color 
of the white man may save him, no matter how black his 
crime or loathsome his bestiality. But if you once put that 
bitter cup to your lips you will have to drain it to the last 
dregs. Here your friends cannot save you. You must beware 
in time, and escape the danger. 

The law was made for you as well as for white men, and in 
your case it will be sternly enforced. Few voices will be 
heard pleading in your behalf, on the ground that you have 
been a slave. On the contrary, you will find — what does not 
often happen — that all the had as well as all the good will be 
arrayed against you. If you do not keep a sharp look-out, 
you will find that freedom, although a holy, is often a danger- 
ous, gift. A great poet says, *' Lord of himself, — that heritage 
of woe." 

You MUST GET KNOWLEDGE. — Other things being equal, 
your progress and elevation will depend entirely upon the 
amount of your intelligence. Ignorance is one of the prin- 
cipal curses of slavery. In Heaven's name, rid yourselves of 
it as quickly as possible. 

First of all, learn to read, and teach your wives and 
children. Do it nights and Sundays, if you can find no other 
time. And when this is done you will, indeed, find your- 
selves in a new world. You don't know how much good it 
would do you all. Ignorance cannot help you or anybody 
else. Ignorance is dark ; knowledge is light. Do not think 
you have done much till you can read that glorious book 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. 195 

which our Father sent down to us from heaven. It is his 
voice. It sj^caks to 3^011. You must learn to read it. But, 
whatever you may neglect for yourselves, don't, oh, don't let 
your children grow up in ignorance ; for they would still be 
under the curse of slavery. Gret as near to the school-house 
and a Sunday-school as you can. There will hereafter be no 
law in the South punishing anybody that teaches you to read. 
All good people will help you, and you will find it not only 
very easy, after a little while, but very delightful. Then, 
and then only, will you know what freedom is worth. 

You must forget and forgive all the wrongs you have suf- 
fered. '' If you forgive not, neither shall you be forgiven," 
This is God's rule; and you must obey it if you would have 
his blessing, I know how hard it will sometimes come to 
forgive those who have sold your wives and children and 
heaped on your heads wrong upon wrong. But you must do 
it. Christ did it to his murderers. " Vengeance is mine, saith 
the Lord." 

All your friends are proud to hear that you have behaved 
so well wherever you have been instantly set free. The foes 
of emancipation predicted that you would be guilty of every 
crime. But of the tens of thousands who have suddenly 
passed into freedom, no record of crime yet appears against 
you. We can now point to your example and justify our- 
selves for all the confidence we have had in you. 

So too are we happy and grateful to learn that the three 
millions and a half of your race who still clank the chain 
are meekly and patiently waiting for the day of their libera- 
tion. God grant that they may wait patiently still! While 
he is doing the work, do not stand in his way. Show to the 
world that you were worthy to be free. The more you prove 
this, the quicker the fetters will fall. Let it be God's act. 
He will hasten it in its time. 

From the beginning of the war till now, you have been com- 
pelled to look on, idle spectators of this great struggle; and 



196 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

you know the reason why. The war was not begun by the 
North, nor was it carried on by the North for the sake of 
destroying slavery. It was begun by the slaveholders to de- 
stroy the Union, extend slavery, and open the slave-trade. 
The North went into it to preserve the Union; and when we 
found that slavery would destroy the republic unless slavery 
should be wiped out itself, then Mr. Lincoln declared freedom 
to all the slaves of all the enemies of the Union. 

Now it has come to this, that this great war is between 
slavery and freedom. It has become a loar for you. Now 
you can come into the fight, and take the field, and help work 
out your own salvation. And you must do it; for remember 
that "he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.^' 
If you will not help yourselves, whom are you to look to ? 

Yes, you must not hang back. Enlist in the army the first 
chance you get. If you are not as ready and willing to spill 
your blood for your own freedom as white men are to do it 
for you, then you will prove, what your masters have always 
said, that you are not fit nor worthy to be free. You are not 
asked to take a life, or use or destroy any property, except as 
soldiers, under the command of your officers. In all this you 
are doing but your duty as men and citizens of a great and 
glorious country. 

You will not forget that mankind respect nothing so much 
as valor. To fight gallantly in a good cause will win for you 
and your race more honor and respect than you can win in 
any other way. By showing that you are good soldiers, you 
will do more towards your own progress and elevation than all 
your friends could do for you in a century. 

In this way, and in this way only, can you repay the debt of 
gratitude which you owe to your deliverers. Every brave 
deed you do, the higher your fidelity to your flag, the more 
complete your subordination and discipline, the higher you 
and your race will stand, not only with your commanders 
and with the whole country, but with all nations. 



OF THE REBELLION. 197 

Never before have Africans had such a chance ! In the 
name, then, of your nearly five millions in the United States, 
of more than half as many in South America and the West 
India islands, and of the uncounted tens of millions on the 
continent of Africa, we call on you to shoulder the musket I 
and let your valor and martial achievements work the long- 
delayed redeiuption of a mighty people. 

Another consideration, which is likely to be of grave ma^-- 
nitude hereafter, should not be left out of sight now. It is 
EMIGRATION, — NOT COLONIZATION MERELY. It has been a 
Sisyphus work for us to try to found colonies in Africa while 
we held millions of slaves at home and offered no induce- 
ment to emigrate except either to be made free at the price 
of expatriation, or to receive the poor boon of escaping the 
blighting influence of prejudice against color, at the cost of 
a life-long exile among barbarians of a darker skin, and no 
knowledge of civilization or the living God. 

Few of your race w^ent to Africa on these hard terms ; and 
I am glad of it. 



198 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXVII. 

African Troops— The Pnture Armies of tlie Eepnblic. 

Those who have declaimed loudest against the employ- 
ment of negro troops have shown a lamentable amount of 
ignorance, and an equally lamentable lack of common sense. 
They know as little of the military history and martial quali- 
ties of the African race as they did of their own duties as 
commanders. 

All distinguished generals of modern times who have had 
opportunities to use negro soldiers have uniformly applauded 
their subordination, bravery, and powers of endurance. 
Washington solicited the military services of negroes in the 
Revolution, and rewarded them. Jackson did the same in the 
War of 1812. Under both those great captains the negro 
troops fought so well that thoy received unstinted praise. 

Bancroft, in speaking of the battle of Bunker Hill (vol. 
vii. p. 421, History of United States), says, — 

" Nor should history forget to record that as in the army 
at Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes 
of the colony had their representatives. For the right of 
free negroes to bear arms in the public defence was at that 
day as little disputed in New England as their other rights. 
They took their places, not in a separate corps, but in the 
ranks with the white men ; and their names may be read on 
the pension-rolls of the country side by side with those of 
other soldiers of the Revolution." 

In the Memoir of Major Samuel Lawrence (by Rev. Dr 
Lothrop, pp. 8, 9) the following passage occurs : — 

" At one time he commanded a company whose rank and 



OF THE REBELLION. 199 

file were all uegroes, of whose courage, military discipline, 
and fidelity he always spoke with respect. On one occasion, 
being out reconnoitring with this company, he got so far in 
advance of his command that he was surrounded and on the 
point of being made prisoner by the enemy. The men, soon 
discovering his peril, rushed to his rescue, and fought with 
the most determined bravery till that rescue was effectually 
secured." 

When the Committee of Conference on the condition of 
the army agreed that negro soldiers should be rejected al- 
together, Washington, on the 31st of December, 1775, wrote 
from Cambridge to the President of Congress as follows : — 

" It has been represented to me that the free negroes who 
have served in this army are very much dissatisfied at being 
discarded. As it is to be apprehended that they may seek 
employ in the ministerial army, I have presumed to depart 
from the resolution respecting them, and have given license 
for their being enlisted. If this is disapproved of by Con- 
gress, I will put a stop to it." — jSj^co-ks's Life of Wcuhington, 
vol. iii. pp. 218, 219. 

Conp:ress sustained Washino-ton in disreo'ardino; the reso- 
lution. 

The secret journals of Congress (vol. i. pp. 107, 110), 
March 29, 1779, show that the States of South Carolina and 
Georgia were '' recommended to raise immediately three 
thousand able-bodied negroes. That every negro who shall 
well and faithfully serve as a soldier to the end of the present 
war, and shall then return his arms, he emancipated and re- 
ceive the sum of fifty dollars." 

Washington, Hamilton, Greene, Lincoln, and Lawrence, 
warmly approved of the measure. In 1783 the General As- 
sembly of Virginia passed '^An act directing the emancipa- 
tion of certain slaves who have served as soldiers in this 
war." 

We next give an extract from an act of the " State of Rhode 



200 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Island and Providence Plantations, in General Assembly ^^ 
February session, 1778 : — "Whereas, for the preservation of 
the rights and liberties of the United States, it is necessary 
that the whole powers of Government should he exerted in re- 
cruiting the Continental battalions; and whereas his Excel- 
lency General Washington hath enclosed to this State a pro- 
posal, made to him by Brigadier-General Varnum, to enlist into 
the two battalions, raising by this State, such slaves as should 
be willing to enter into the service; and whereas history affords 
us frequent precedents of the ivisest, the freest and bravest 
nations having liberated their slaves and enlisted them as 
soldiers to fight in defence of their country; and, also, whereas 
the enemy, with a great force, have taken possession of the 
capital and a great part of this State, and this State is obliged 
to raise a very considerable number of troops for its own im- 
mediate defence, whereby it is in a manner rendered impos- 
sible for this State to furnish recruits for the said two batta- 
lions without adopting the said measure so recommended; 

" It is Voted, and Resolved, That every able-bodied wer/ro, 
mulatto, or Indian man-slave in this State may enlist into 
either of the said two battalions, to serve during the continu- 
ance of the present war with Great Britain ; that every slave 
so enlisting shall be entitled to and receive all the bounties, 
wages, and encouragements allowed by the Continental Con- 
gress to any soldier enlisting into their service. 

^^ It is further Voted and Resolved, That every slave so en- 
listing shall, upon his passing muster before Colonel Chris- 
topher Green, be immediately discharged from the service of 
his master or mistress, and be absolutely FREE, as though -he 
had never been encumbered with any kind of servitude or 
slavery." 

The neo-roes enlisted under this act were the men who im- 

o 

mortalized themselves at Bed Bank. 

Arnold, in his " History of Bhode Island,'^ vol. ii. pp. 427, 
428, describing the "battle of Rhode Island," fought August 



OF THE REBELLION. 201 

29, 1778, says, "A third time the enemy, with desperate 
courage and increased strength, attempted to assail the redoubt, 
and would have carried it, but for the timely aid of two Con- 
tinental battalions despatched by Sullivan to support his almost 
exhausted troops. It was in repelling these furious onsets 
that the newly-raised hlack regiment, under Colonel Green,- 
distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor. Posted 
behind a thicket in the valley, they three times drove back 
the Hessians, who charged repeatedly down the hill to dislodge 
them." 

Negroes have always been favorites* in our navy, and their 
names always entered on the ships' books without distinction. 
Commodore Chauncey thus speaks: — 

" I regret that you are not pleased with the men sent you 
by Messrs. Champlin and Forrest, for, to my knowledge, a 
part of them are not surpassed by any seamen we have in the 



* "In referring to Mr. WicklifFe's remarks against Generals Butler and 
Hunter, he (Mr. Dunn) pointed to the fact that General Jackson employed 
colored soldiers in the defence of New Orleans and complimented them 
upon their gallantry and good order. Kentuckians were in that battle 
with black men. Commodore Perry fought his battles on Lake Erie with 
the help of black men ; and black men, too, fought in the Revolutionary 
War. Commodores Sti-ingham and Woodhull severally testify to the valu- 
able services of the blacks in the navy, saying they are as brave as any 
who ever stood at the guns. They fought before Vicksburg, and else- 
where. 

" The rebels employ them wherever they can. When they cannot get them 
willingly, they force them, as they did at Yorktown, to take the front rank 
of danger. Why not now not only educate them to the use of arms, but 
prepare them to hold the Southern country wrested from rebels ? He did 
not want the white man to go down and perish there. The negro popula- 
tion, armed, can hold the traitors in subjection. The gentleman from 
Kentucky was apprehensive if arms were placed in the hands of blacks 
that they would commit great barbarities. 'What,' he asked, — replying 
to that remark, — ' had become of the Christian teachings which were said to 
prevail in the South?' He said that General Meigs had informed him ad- 
ditional numbers of blacks were required to man the ships, this class of 
persons having proved highly valuable in the naval service." 



202 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

fleet; and I have yet to learn that the color of the skin, or 
the cut and trimmings of the coat, can affect a man's quali- 
fications or usefulness. I have nearly fifty blacks on board of 
this ship, and many of them are among my best men/' 

In October, 1814, the State of New York passed an act to 
authorize the raising of two regiments of men of color. 

The following proclamation and address of General Andrew 
Jackson covers the whole ground : — 

'•Head-Quarters, 7th Military District. 
" Mobile, September 21, 1814. 

"To THE Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana. 

" Through a mistaken policy, you have heretofore been de- 
prived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national 
rights in which our country is engaged. This no longer shall 
exist. 

"As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend 
our most inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country 
looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous 
support, as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under 
her mild and equitable government. As fathers, husbands, 
and brothers, you are summoned to rally around the standard 
of the eagle, to defend ^11 which is dear in existence. j 

"Your country, although calling for your exertions, does j 
not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remune- | 
rating you for the services rendered. Your intelligent minds | 
are not to be led away by false representations. Your love of 1 
honor would cause you to despise the man who should attempt | 
to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier and the Ian- j 
guage of truth I address you. | 

" To every noble-hearted, generous freeman of color, volun- j 
teering to serve during the present contest with Great Britain, I 
and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty in money i 
and lands now received by the white soldiers of the United 
States, — viz. : one hundred and twenty-four dollars in money, 



I OF THE REBELLION. 203 

and one liundred and sixty acres of land. The non-commis- 
sioned officers and privates j^ill also be entitled to the same 
monthly pay and daily rations, and clothes, furnished to any 
American soldier. 

" On enrolling: yourselves in companies, the major-general 
commanding will select officers for ^^our government from 
your white fellow-citizens. Your non-commissioned officers 
will be appointed from among yourselves. 

"^ Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and 
soldiers. You will not, by being associated with white men in 
the same corps, be exposed to improper comparisons or unjust 
sarcasm. As a distinct, independent battalion or regiment, 
pursuing the path of glory, you will, undivided, receive the 
applause and gratitude of your countrymen. 

"To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions, and my 
anxiety to engage your invaluable services to our country, I 
have communicated my wishes to the Governor of Louisiana, 
who is fully informed as to the manner of enrolment and will 
give you every necessary information on the subject of this 
address. "Andrew Jackson, 

Major- General commanding.^' 

Kiles's Register, vol. vii. p. 205. 

At the close of a review of the white and colored troops in 
New Orleans, on Sunday, December 18, 1814, General Jack- 
son's address to the troops was read by Edward Livingston, 
one of his aids, and the following is the portion addressed 

"To THE Men of Color. — Soldiers! From the shores of 
Mobile I collected you to arms, — I invited you to share in the 
perils and to divide the glory of your white countrymen. I 
expected much from you^ for I was not uninformed of those 
qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading 
foe. I knew that you could endure hunger and thirst and 
all the hardships of war. I knew that you loved the land of 
your nativity, and that, like ourselves, you had to defend all 



204 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

that is most dear to man. But you surpass my hopes. I 
have found in you, united to these qualities, that noble en- 
thusiasm which impels to great deeds. 

" Soldiers ! The President of the United States shall be 
informed of your conduct on the present occasion ; and the 
voice of the representatives of the American nation shall 
applaud your valor, as your general now praises your ardor. 
The enemy is near. His sails cover the lakes. But the brave 
are united ; and if he finds us contending among ourselves, 
it will be for the prize of valor, and fame, its noble reward." — 
Niles's Register, vol. vii. pp. 345, 346."-^ 

But the course of events has pretty effectually changed 
public opinion on the subject. From Major- Glen eral Hunter's 
department,-]" and from other quarters, the official reports of the 

* For many of the foregoing data I am indebted to Mr. Geoi-ge Liver- 
more's recent and valuable work, entitled "An Historical Research respect- 
ing the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as 
Citizens, and as Soldiers." 

f In a letter from General Hunter, written from South Carolina, Feb. 
11, 1863, to a friend, he says,— 

" Finding that the able-bodied negroes did not enter the military service 
as rapidly as could be wished, I have resolved, and so ordered, that all 
who are not regularly employed in the Quartermaster's Department, or as 
officers' servants, shall be drafted. In this course I am sustained by the 
views of all the more intelligent among them.' 

5-r * * * » * i-f Jif 

'' In drafting them I was actuated by several motives, — the controlling 
one being that I regarded their service as a military necessity if this war 
is to be ended in a triumph of the Union arms. Subordinate to this con- 
sideration, I regard the strict discipline of military life as the best school 
in which this people can be gradually lifted toward our higher civilization ; 
and their enrolment in the negro brigade will have the further good effect 
of rendering mere servile insurrection, unrestrained by the laws and usages 
of war, less likely. If any further argument wei'e needed to justify my 
course, it would be found in my deep conviction that freedom (like all 
other blessings) can never be justly appreciated except by men who have 
been taught the sacrifices which are its price. In this course, let me add, 
I expect to be sustained by all the intelligent and practicallj'-minded 
•friends of the enfranchised bondman." 



OF THE REBELLION. 205 

services of negro regiments in the field are highly satisfac- 
tory. The superiority of African troops has been completely 
demonstrated in several important respects. 

1. They have nothing to fear from those Southern diseases 
which prove so fatal to Northern men. 

2. They can endure greater hardships and exposures, in 
camp^ on the march, and on the field of action. 

3. They are more readily reduced to camp-discipline, and, 
from life-long habits of unquestioning obedience, are by no 
means likely to be guilty of insubordination j while deser- 
tion — especially in slave-districts — will be almost unknown. 

Finally, they fight not only for freedom and all the blessings 
it brings, but to escape the ignominious and dreadful death 
they must endure if they once more fall into the hands of their 
revengeful task-masters. 

But other considerations, of the gravest magnitude, must 
enter into the general estimate. 

AVhenever or however this war may end, nobody supposes 
it will leave us without a military and naval force strong 
enough to protect ourselves against insurrection at home and 
ao-oTessiou or insult from abroad. 

Our standing army will ultimately be made up chiefly of 
eliiancipated negroes; so will our navy; and they will in 
time make such a military and maritime force as never has 
been seen. 

Since the days of slavery are numbered in the rebel States, 
where the institution falls with the fall of the rebellion, and 
in the border States, where the people, under an enlightened 
policy, are abolishing it themselves, it will require a vast 
armed force to enable the Government to carry out such 
mighty changes as will necessarily attend the reconstruction 
of Southern society. 

For this stupendous work the negroes will be the reliable 
instruments of the Government in vindicating the strength, 
the honor, and the glory of the republic. Another heavy 

18 



206 THE LIGHT AND DAKK 

force will be required in rebuilding the overthrown structures 
and repairing the waste places of war's desolations. 

It is not improbable, too, that another vast army may be 
needed to build the Pacific Railroad, ship-canals, and other 
great works of protection and defence.* 

* In speaking on the subject of defence for the Northern frontier, Senator 
Arnold, of Rhode Island, used the following striking language : — 

" He said, It is the duty of the statesman not only to crush the rebellion, 
but to cement the Union. This canal will revive the idea of national 
unity, — the grand idea which has inspired the vast and sublime efforts of 
the people to restore the national unity. This canal will be an east-and- 
west Mississippi. He spoke of the unqualified devotion of the West to the 
Union. There were rebels in the West, and elsewhere, who are seeking to 
alienate the West from the East. To this traitorous band was addressed 
the proclamation of the rebel General Bragg. How the West responds, the 
rebels learned from the mouths of her cannon at Murfreesborough. The sol- 
diers of the East and the West, fighting together on many a glorious and 
sanguinary field, will with their blood cement a union and a nationality 
so strong and deep that no sectional appeal can ever shake the loyalty of 
the glorious band of loyal States. The West will regard as traitors alike 
those who suggest a peace with any portion of the Mississippi in rebel 
hands, and those who suggest a Union with patriotic, brave. New England 
left out. 

" The Northern frontier must be defended ; and this canal is the cheapest 
and best means of defending it. While the Atlantic shore is protected 
from any foreign enemy by three thousand miles of ocean, by forts and fortifi- 
cations from Maine to Florida, by a navy which has cost hundreds of mil- 
lions, the Northern frontier, not less important, is entirely defenceless, and 
within easy cannon-range for hundreds of miles of a foreign territory. 

"The Northwest cheerfully pays her proportion for the defence of the 
Atlantic, and will pay further large appropriations now required. But we 
ask, in justice, that the Northern frontier should be secured. 

"He then read a memorial of ex-President Fillmore and others, showing 
the exposed condition of Lake Erie, and showed that the lakes by the 
Canadian canals were accessible to British gunboats, and the lake cities 
and commerce were exposed to destruction. This canal will enable us to 
place our gunboats on the lakes. He read a letter from Admiral Porter, 
showing that we had now afloat more than fifty gunboats which could pass 
from the ocean to the lakes by this canal. 

"He then presented the importance — fiscal, commercial, and agricul- 
tural — of the interests thus seeking protection. 



OF THE REBELLION. 207 

Aud lie would be both a sliort-siglited and sanguine oiDti- 
mist who should leave out of the horoscope of the next few 
years the contingencies, if not the probabilities, of a collision 
with Great Britain, That struggle is as inevitable as this 
rebellion was. All the issues have been gathering, and the 
result must come. No mortal power can protract it forever; 
We must be prepared for it, so that it can at no time take us 
by surprise. This is now the feeling among all parties and 
sections throughout the country. This feeling will not change. 
Nations never forgive wrongs or insults. Ours must and will 
be avenged. The African race emancipated will hereafter 
constitute the great body-guard of the Union. 

"Fifty-eight million bushels of breadstuflfs were shipped from Chicago 
alone during the past year. The commerce of the lakes was at least four 
hundred millions per annum. Corn, since cotton had committed /e^o de se, 
was now Ti'ing, and kept the peace between Europe and America. This 
enlarged canal is the cheapest mode of defending the lakes. The whole 
cost of the canal was only thirteen million dollars. This will turn the 
Mississippi into the lakes, and unite forever the East and the West. Every 
dollar thus expended in defence cheapens transportation. 

"The eapacitj^ of the proposed Illinois Canal will be twelve times that of 
the Erie Canal. The largest steamers which navigate the Mississippi will 
steam directly to Lake Michigan. These grand results cost only thirteen 
millions. It will rapidly pay for itself, and is then to leave a grand na- 
tional free highway. It will add to the taxable property of the Union as 
much, or more, than the Erie Canal has done. It will give stability to 
our Government, and add to the national wealth. It will increase both 
our ability to borrow money and to pay it." 



;08 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXVIII. 

The Convalescent Camp of the Pourtli Ohio. 

Some fortunate accidents first made me acquainted with 
this noble regiment and its accomplished surgeon. 

There is something very strange and curious about this regi- 
ment. It entered the field with floating banners; it waited 
under arms a long time for a fight; it was well drilled, well 
officered, and well prepared for a fight; and yet fight it had 
none. It is altogether one of the most singular features of the 
war, 

I will give its history as I received it from the surgeon of 
the regiment itself, as contained in his own official reports to 
his superior officers. 

First in a letter to Colonel John S. Mason, dated near 
Newport News, Ya., Aug. 24, 1862. He says, — 

*' Surgeon's Office, 4th Regt. 0. V. I. 
" Camp near Newport News, Va., August 24, 1862. 

" Sir : — I have the honor to represent the following facts con- 
nected with the sanitary condition of the regiment which you 
command, — viz. : 

"1st. Often companies, numbering nine hundred and nine 
enlisted men, there are not to exceed three hundred (300) in 
good physical condition, present for duty. 

" 2. During the three months ending June 30, the regiment 
reported a daily average of seven hundred and forty (740) 
enlisted men present for duty. 

" 3. The marked depression of the strength of the regiment 
is due to the prevalence of a prostrating diarrhoea, which 
attacked alike the officers and men of the command on or 



OF THE REBELLION. 209 

about the 10th of July, and wliile occupying a camp near 
Harrison's Landing, Va. 

"4. During the continuance of this endemic, there occurred 
more than six hundred cases (without being associated with a 
single death, from whatever cause) ; and, although its violence 
has now materially abated, its victims are still haunted witli 
leanness, great muscular prostration, and remarkably feeble 
digestion. 

"In view of the foregoing facts, it becomes my duty to re- 
commend and to urge, so far as may be warrantable, that this 
regiment be allowed to remain in camp for a period of not less 
than thirty days, as being necessary to restore to their accus- 
tomed vigor and efficiency the men who since June, 1861, 
have been constantly engaged in the most active campaigning, 
both summer and winter. 

" The regiment having been recruited in Central Ohio, it is 
suggested that their early recuperation will be facilitated by 
locating their encampment not materially south of Washington 
City. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" H. M. McAbee, 
"Siiraeon 4:fh Rcgt. 0. V. L 

" To Col. John S. Mason, com'g 4th Regt. 0. Y. I." 

On the 10th Sept. 1862, the following letter was written : — 

"Near Tort Gaixes, D.C, Sept. 10, 1862. 

" Sir : — I have the honor to represent that of the six hundred 
and thirty-five men belonging to your regiment, now in camp, 
there are but one hundred and eighty-five able to do military 
duty. 

'' The enfeebled condition of those unfit for duty is due to 
the severe and unmanageable disease of the stomach and bowels 
by which the men were attacked while at Harrison's Landing, 
Va., and which has induced such impairment of the nutritive 
functions as can only be repaired by the most careful and 

18* 



210 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

well-directed dietetic and general regimen^ steadily sustained 
for weeks, and such as is absolutely impracticable in the field. 

"Indeed, it is a serious question whether the majority of 
those now ordered to duty are not in great danger of early and 
permanent disability by being taken into the field ere they 
are fully restored. 

" The sequel which is so much to be dreaded in case the 
men are now overtaxed and exposed is typhoid fever, which 
when superadded to such a condition will in a large number 
of cases result in death, or at best in a complete wreck of 
health. 

"Your obedient servant, 

"H. M. McAbee, 
''Surgeon 4:th Regt. 0. V. I. 

" To Col. John S. Mason, com'g 4th Regt. 0. Y. I.'' 

And as late as the 8th of November, 1862, the following 
was sent to the Governor of Ohio : — 

"Near Fort Gaines, D.C, Nov. 8, 1862. 
" Hon. Sir : — On behalf of one of the best regiments that 
Ohio has sent into the field, which is yet strong numerically, 
but rendered non-efi'ective by disease, I beg leave to address 
you. 

" There are of the regiment in this camp one hundred and 
forty (140) invalids. There are at Harper's Ferry three hun- 
dred and fifty (350) non-efi"ective men belonging to it. And 
there are with the corps to which we belong, in the field, for 
duty, but one hundred and twenty (120). The remnant — 
almost two hundred (200) — are scattered in hospitals. 

" You ask, why are so many sick ? I answer, the regiment 
has been in active campaign since June, 1861. During all of 
last winter it was in the field, often compelled to bivouac 
amid snow and ice. 



OF THE REBELLION. 211 

'^ Coming out of such a winter campaign in tlie mountain 
country of Western Virginia, and while yet enervated by re- 
peated forced marches, which measured miles by hundreds, it 
was suddenly hurled, with the speed of steam, at midsummer, 
from an elevation of two thousand feet to tide-level, and into 
the almost torrid climate of Harrison's Landing, Va. 

" When we landed there, July 2, 1862, we had more than 
eight hundred (800) enlisted men present for duty; and 
at the expiration of three weeks we reported less than three 
hundred for duty, though we had buried but a single man 
from disease. We lost, meantime, one in battle, and had eight 
or ten wounded. 

"A desperate form of diarrhoea attacked the entire camp, 
officers and men. From this disease, now chronic in the great 
majority of the entire regiment, the men will not recover so 
as to be fit for field-service this winter. 

"They could do garrison-duty, but really ought to do 
nothing but rest. Men cannot endure such camj^aigning, year 
after year^ icithout respite. 

'■' The question is simply this, — viz. : AVhether these devoted 
men shall be killed outright during the coming winter, with- 
out any compensating element of service to the country, or 
whether they shall be restored to vigor, by appropriate care, 
to take part in the spring and summer campaigns of 1863. 
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" H. M. McAbee, 
^'•Surgeon Ath Regt. 0. Y. I. 

''To his Excellency David Tod, 

" Governor of Ohio." 

Thanksgiving-day — a Yankee festival — the friends of the 
Ohio Fourth had fixed on for giving a banquet in the camp. 
Oh, how gladly the morning broke ! How fresh and bracing 
was the air ! How deep-blue was the sky ! " Yes, 31r. Chase 



212 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

is to be there, and Miss Cliase, and our members ', and we stall 
have such a good home-time. You must come." 

It was a nice ride; for who that has sweltered in Washing- 
ton would not always be glad to get away from its mud or 
dust, and spring into the higher atmosphere of the surround- 
ing hills that begirt the city as they rise up towards the 
Heights of Georgetown ? 

We seemed to be in the wild, wide, free country. Not all 
the green leaves were gone. Some few of the hardier shrubs 
still held their foliage. But the shrivelled leaves falling now 
and then from the old oaks told us that winter had sent 
its first blast. 

We took the longest road to get there ; for there was no 
hurry. Autumn was come : all its eloquent language, all its 
soberness and thoughtfulness, were around us. The last birds 
of summer were getting ready to go to their Southern homes, 
and we saw them, mated, plumed for leaving, sitting side 
by side on the top boughs, having the last chat with old com- 
panions, and then gliding ofi" through the clear air to try their 
fortunes in lands they had never seen, but seeking what they 
were sure to find, — their Paradise, — a perpetual summer. 
Let no cruel shot divide the happy couple ! Let such music 
never be stilled ! 

;{< * Jfs 5i< * ;i< 

A turn in the road brought us to the crown of a beautiful 
hill, near Fort Gaines, where four hundred men from a single 
regiment were encamped in their picturesque Sibley-tent vil- 
lage, waiting to get well enough to take the field again, or 
to — die ! 

Mr. Chase was not there : he could not be. Somebody else 
made a speech. 

When a word was said about home, it struck a chord which 
vibrated joyously, but still painfully, through every heart. 
They said, ^' Let us go home while we are unable to take the 
field. Let us recruit there. We will give up our pay; we 



OP THE REBELLION. 213 

will come Lack again : wc have every tiling here the Govern- 
ment or our friends could do ; but let us go home to get well/' 
I could not help assuring them that the President, the Secre- 
tary of War, the Surgeon-Greneral, and all Congress would 
do it. 

All made their word good. Many of the men were sent back 
to their own State. Homes by the hundred were made 
brighter during the bowlings of winter storms; but I have 
heard that since the spring brooks have begun to murmur 
again, these restored and reinvigorated veterans are preparing 
to return to plant the insulted ensign of a protecting and en- 
deared republic once more on the last battlement of this 
accursed rebellion. 



214 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXIX. 

The Proclamation of Emancipation, 

It was among the grandest acts in history. It will have 
more influence over the fortunes of the human race than any 
act of any other ruler of nations. Scarcely had a short month 
gone by before it was known to every sitter in the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death^ and it shook the policy of every Govern- 
ment in Europe. 

Those who sneered at it as a pompous brutem fulminse 
forgot that davery never was restored ivliere it had hy supreme 
authority once been proclaimed abolished ! Liberty takes no 
such steps backward. Slavery had been abolished by procla- 
mation in St. Domingo. It was the attempt to reinstate it 
that whelmed that island in blood. Anywhere else it will 
have the same effect. 

Lord Russell ridiculed it because it was levelled only at 
" slavery over territory beyond Mr. Lincoln's control, while 
all the States and districts held by Federal arms were ex- 
empt." This would be a very flimsy objection even if it were 
true ; but it is not true. His lordship forgets that " the Pro- 
clamation" v^as purely a icar measu7'e. Humane and sublime 
as the results may and will be, it was not done as an act of 
humanity. Its sole immediate object was like that of any 
other war measure, — to weaken the enemies of the country 
and strengthen its friends. In this light, of course, the measure 
was adopted for and intended to apply only to districts in re- 
bellion. It was to take effect there at the cannon's mouth. 
Slave-labor there was a strong prop of the revolt. It either 
raised bread and meat on the plantations, or it did the heavy 



; OF THE REBELLION. 215 

work of the camp. An able-bodied slave bad, from the liour 
tlie rebellion began, been as necessary, and often as efficient, 
as a white soldier in the field. This gave the South half a 
million extra soldiers. 

It would have been no "war measure" to proclaim slavery 
abolished in the districts which were loyal ; for our friends, 
there would thus not only have been punished for their 
loyalty, but deprived of the very slave-labor aid to strengthen 
them in fighting our enemies which the Proclamation was in- 
tended to rob the rebels of. And, besides, everybody of any 
• sense knew that this Proclamation was not a mere isolated act. 
It was part and parcel of the imperatively necessary policy 
of an administration which was charged with the tremendous 
responsibility of rescuing the rejDublic from an imminent and 
appalling danger. Universal emancipation of the African race 
in the United States was embraced in the plan ; for the rebel- 
lion had made it inevitable. 

Several preparatory measures had already passed. The 
Fugitive-Slave Act had been abolished, slavery itself abo- 
lished in the District of Columbia, compensation for slaves 
voluntarily emancipated proposed, and other measures propi- 
tious to the final result. 

It was, moreover, entirely unnecessary to touch slavery in 
the hands of loyal men, for it was perfectly well known that 
all loyal States and districts would accept the offer of compen- 
sation for emancii^ation, rather than run the terrible risk of 
losing their slaves, their money, and perhaps, above all, the 
Federal protection for themselves, their homes and families. 

In all such districts immediate or gradual emancipation was 
sure to come. 

Having thus disposed of this captious and pointless objec- 
tion, let us briefly inquire what were the immediate and what 
will be the ultimate results of Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation. 

As a war measure, it was the first effectual blow levelled at 
the heart of the rebellion. It shook the structure to the centre. 



216 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

It was the last thing the slave-oligarchy had thought of; it 
came upon them like the trump of doom. 

It annihilated all hope of intervention by the Powers of 
Europe in behalf of the slaveholding rebellion. This they ac- 
knowledged themselves. They saw what was clear enough 
even to the blind, — that the first throne in Europe which took 
sides with slavery in America against freedom and free 
government would crumble to ashes in the earthquake of a 
revolution. This banished all idea of the recognition of Jeff 
Davis's oligarchy from the brain of every Minister in Europe. 

The Proclamation was hailed with enthusiasm by all the 
uncompromising friends of the Union ; and all intelligent men 
saw that, hastily as the verdict had been rendered sanctioning 
the act, the approval was the solemn voice of the nation, and 
the ratification of the deed sounded the death-laieU of African 
slavery. It was the sudden beginning of a swift end. 

Students of history! let memory go gleaning over all the 
fields of the past: you find not an instance recurring in which 
freedom once proclaimed by the sovereign power as the law 
of a State ever saw slavery live again. Some systems of wrong 
once sent to their graves have no resurrection. 

But these results were only the first steps in the tread of 
the earthquake. That earthquake had shaken the world. It 
startled Cuba; its unduMions heaved under Brazil. 

Some events are understood just about as well before as 
after they happen. On the subject of African slavery the 
voice and example of no nation could be so potential as 
America's. When slavery was declared abolished in the 
United States, it meant that it had received its death-wound 
at the same hour in every other land. If negro slavery fell 
dead before our altars where liberty was born, it would carry 
all like systems with it to a common sepulchre. 

This Proclamation cut a dead weight from our body politic. 
Sound and sensible men felt in every nerve of sensation a new, 
electric shock. East, West, North, South, — everywhere the 



OF THE REBELLION. 217 

vital stream of regenerating fire flowed through the nation. 
To the East it was a tribute to the dignity of free labor. To the 
North it promised to roll a new burden of commerce along all 
her lakes, rivers, and canals, created by the augmentation of 
well-directed industry. To the South it offered to save her 
from herself The foul corpse of Slavery was unlashed from 
the fair form of Liberty and abandoned to sink forever. 

This Proclamation gave us what we had in the beginning, 
and what we had lost, — -the commanding post of honor and 
progress, — the van of the nations. 

Finally, it cut the Gordian knot of the abolition of slavery 
in America, and secured the establishment of civilization in 
Africa. 

For the first time we can speak intelligently and rationally 
of this great work which has been reserved for our emanci- 
pated republic to do. 



19 



218 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXX. 

Contempt for Labor the Characteristic only of Slaveholders. 

An oligarchy lives upon forced labor ) and therefore kibor 
is by an oligarchy always despised. Where labor can be 
wrung from unwilling muscles, either by the lash or any 
other appliance of despotic power, the laborer is held in con- 
tempt. 

All this holds true of any one of the countless systems of 
oppression which have disgraced human society. It is true 
in India, where the work is all done by the slave caste. It 
was true in Greece^ where the Helots were lashed to their 
toil. It is true in England, where a cessation from hard 
labor instantly pays the penalty, — starvation. 

Such a system brutalizes its subjects. It shuts out light 
and the possibility of knowledge. It is stationary, and pre- 
cludes progress. It is degrading; for it nurtures nothing but 
the lower passions. It therefore makes the slave the personi- 
fier of those qualities only which excite contempt. Labor is 
their sole business 3 and therefore labor is despised. In our 
country slaves are black : hence the prejudice against color. 
In the Orient the Cashmere is supremely ftiir and beautiful. 
But Cashmere slaves, being used only as instruments of bar- 
baric taste or lust, are admired for their color, while their 
occupation and condition are the objects of tyrannical disgust. 
Where higher sentiments spring up, the slave is made free ; 
when the last vestige of degradation is supposed to be blotted 
out, the emancipated mistress becomes the admired and 
respected sultana. 

Association does it all. An indelicately-dressed bawd is at 



OF THE REBELLION. 219 

once arrested by any well-regulated police if she appears in 
the streets. But the same woman may dress with still 
greater indelicacy as a danseuse at the opera-house, and if she 
is beautiful, or dances well, bouquets are showered at her feet, 
and the applause rises in equal ratio to the indecency of the 
costume and performance. The beauty or voluptuousness of 
African women has been the chjief source of all amalgama- 
tion. Beauty and emancipation remove prejudice against 
color in a remarkably small space of time. Nothing but to 
he free inspires respect. 

Born and " raised'^ under the blighting influence of any 
slave-system, the master and the mistress are infected : con- 
tact alone breeds contamination. Man cannot take live coals 
into his bosom and not be burned. 

Ungrateful as it is to make either the admission or the 
allegation, truth compels it : to grow up the irresponsible 
mistress of slaves casts a mildew over the female heart. It 
precludes the highest culture in woman ; for its short-comings 
are a constant source of irritation, — while the not unfrequent 
acts of deception and wrong-doing stir the baser passions 
into malignity. 

This all springs from the system of slavery. No slave- 
mistress can entirely escape it. With noble and gifted spirits 
the influence is far less unpropitious. But this is only saying 
that noble spirits are strong enough to resist shocks which 
weaker ones cannot withstand, — that the spiritual soars above 
the material. 

But, although the conquest may not be complete, except by 
heroic perseverance, yet under these unfavorable surroundings 
the few may reach a far higher character than they ever 
would have attained had they 

" through the cool sequestered vale of life 
Pursued the noiseless tenor of their way." 

These are the few exceptions to the otherwise inflexible 
rule. The silver beams of a few stars may penetrate the 



220 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

mists : their brilliancy is only the more entrancing. The 
bounding blood of youth may be too pure and vigorous to be 
contaminated by the malaria : the youth is the more joyous 
and beautiful. The blinded bird may find its way to a 
friendly covert in the driftings of the storm, but the eagle 
alone escapes the tempest by soaring above it. 

The dreadful truth remains : African slavery has a direct 
and inevitable tendency to degrade woman at the South. 

A thousand illustrations have occurred since this war 
began. Wherever our officers or soldiers have paced the 
streets of cities, from Baltimore to New Orleans, or been seen 
in cars, hotels, or steamboats, they have been the objects of 
special indignity from well-dressed ladies who had been edu- 
cated under the barbarous regime of slavery. Their conduct 
lias often been characterized by a vulgarity and fiendish ma- 
lignity which indicated the total loss of all the graces, or 
even decencies, which are supposed in well-bred society to 
belong inseparably to the gentler sex. 



OF THE REBELLION. 221 



XXXI. 

In the Valley of the Shenandoah, 

One evening, falling in with a really brave and noble 
officer of the rebel army, who had been paroled in Wash- 
ington as one of our prisoners taken in one of the night- 
skirmishes of the Shenandoah valley, 1 learned an incident 
well worth relating. 

A squadron of two hundred of Stuart's Cavalry had sur- 
prised seventeen of our mounted pickets, who were completely 
surrounded, and, of course, ordered to surrender. 

" Sir," said our lieutenant, " such is the fate of war," and, 
offering his sword, turned his horse to his command and gave 
the order, — 

^'Boys, empty sixteen saddles." 

One flash from sixteen carbines obeyed. Dashing on the 
rebel captain and seizing him by the collar, he dragged him 
away, dangling at his horse's flanks. 

'' Follow, men !" 

They did; and, riddled though their clothes were with 
bullets, they all escaped. 

After the first mile had been made, the lieutenant checked 
up, and asked his prisoner, the captain, if he would prefer 
any other mode of riding. 

Of course he did. As good luck would have it, the rebel's 
horse was loyal to his master, and he had in the 77ielee fol- 
lowed him. One of our men seized his bridle-rein ; and thus, 
as the rebel captain struck on his feet, his own horse whin- 
neyed to his master's call. 

" Now, captain, you must feel at home, I suppose, you are 

mounted again." 

19* 



222 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

It was a strange coincidence. The rebel was sent to the 
Old Capitol Prison some days later^ and among the courtesies 
shown to him there he found the identical copy of Xeno- 
phon's Cyropsedia which he and his captor had both read^ as 
class-mates^ in Yale College, ten years before. 

The captain considered this a clear case of Yankee chivalry 
and civilization. I do not blame him for his opinion. 
* ^ ^ ^ -^ -^^ 

Sergeant Mouser^ Co. H, 4th Ohio Vols., left Delaware 
University in his Senior year to enlist. He made a brilliant 
speech at a flag-presentation before leaving his native village, 
— Marion, Ohio, — before an immense assemblage gathered to 
witness the departure of the first troops under the three months' 
call. He re-enlisted for three years, and became one of the 
most promising officers in his regiment. 

On one occasion, being on picket-duty under the command 
of a lieutenant, information was received of the arrival of a body 
of rebel cavalry in a neighborhood about ten miles distant from 
his post, their evident intention being to collect some fine 
herds of fat cattle that were being grazed on the glades of the 
Alleghanies. He obtained permission to go, asking only for 
a single soldier and the guide who had brought the informa- 
tion, and engaged to drive in the cattle during the night. On 
reaching the house of the farmer who had charge of the 
cattle, just after dark, he saw through the window a party of 
rebel soldiers at supper; and, instantly dismounting, he rushed 
alone into the house, and, drawing his pistol, commanded, " Keep 
your seats, gentlemen. Finish your supper. You are my 
prisoners." And, calling from the door, he again commanded, 
*' Sergeant, station your guards around the house. Throw out 
twenty horsemen as pickets. Send me an orderly, and report 
to me in person as soon as your orders are executed." 

The party at supper sat in amazement, while he coolly 
secured the carbines that stood in the corner. 

Outside, the soldier, who had been previously instructed, 



OF THE REBELLION. 223 

gave his orders in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard within, 
and, with the guide, who led the sergeant's horse, according to 
previous instructions, galloped about the house in every direc- 
tion, to give the impression of a considerable body of soldiers. 
Presently the guide appeared at the door, without entering, 
as "orderly;'^ and Sergeant Mouser took a seat at the table 
with his prisoners and ate a hearty supper. After this was 
over, he took the three rebel soldiers and the farmer into the 
loft of the house, and had some boards brought, with which he 
nailed up the door and window. He then shut up the land- 
lady and cooks in the kitchen, securing the windows and door 
in the same manner. The soldier stood guard, while the 
guide started for a couple of trusty mountaineers some two 
miles distant, with whose assistance he drove off sixty head 
of fine fat cattle, the property of a rebel officer who resided 
near Winchester, Virginia. 

About two o'clock at night, Sergeant Mouser and the soldier 
started for camp, and, overtaking the drove of cattle, arrived 
with them in safety early in the morning. 

While his regiment was stationed at Romney, Virginia, he 
was attacked with fever, and sent to the hospital at Cumber- 
land, Maryland, where he was placed on a bunk from which a 
dead soldier had been taken only the day before. 

He grew worse; and his captain, who was strongly attached 
to him, obtained permission to go and minister to his wants, 
when he expressed his fears that the circumstance of being 
placed on the couch of the dead soldier was seriously affect- 
ing him, and desired to be removed. He was then taken to a 
private boarding-house, by the permission of Henry Salter, 
surgeon in charge, whose kindness is a noble exception to 
the mani/ cases of indifference manifested hy many army 
surgeons. But it was too late. The fever had already taken 
too deep a hold on his constitution. His friends having been 
telegraphed for, his father arrived in time to see him die; and 



224 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

his last words were, " Oli that I might have died in battle ! 
But not my will — thine, Lord, be done." 

He was a pious professor of the Christian religion, and 
died triumphant in the faith. Rev. Gr. W. Burns, of Cumber- 
land, accompanied the father, with the remains of the brave 
sergeant, to his home in Ohio. 

:ii * ^ ji< ^ ^ 

The more I have seen of this war, and the more I read of 
others, the more fully am I persuaded that the deeper a man's 
religious convictions become, the sublimer will rise his hero- 
ism. Macaulay well said, " Many a man has sneered at the 
Puritans ; but no man ever did it who had had occasion to 
meet them in the halls of debate, or to cross swords with 
them on the field of battle." 



OF THE REBELLION. 225 



XXXII. 

A Well-Known New York Boy. 

The 9th N. Y. State Militia, 8od Volunteers, went to the 
war eight hundred strong. On their first muster after the first 
hloody field of Fredericksburg, they numbered one hundred. 
Many of the bravest and best young men in New York were 
in the ranks of this regiment. Among others, some of my 
readers will remember Henry Osgood, as a tall, athletic, hand- 
some, and accomplished young man, living in 24th Street. 
Filled with patriotic fire, he started with his musket, and was 
with his regiment in all its fights, distinguishing himself by 
his gallantry and daring. At Fredericksburg he was wounded, 
— but slightly, as was supposed. He so represented it to his 
friends. Growing worse, however, he was sent with his 
wounded comrades — of his company only two being left — to 
the Lincoln Hospital in Washington. He wrote often to his 
home, concealing, if he knew, his real danger. His surgeon 
must have known from the beginning that the wound was 
mortal. But the soldier " preferred to suffer alone, without 
making those who loved him suffer unnecessarily;'^ and thus 
he continued his correspondence up to within a few hours of 
his death. His last letters were as cheerful as his first. They 
were all glowing with the sunlight of cheerfulness and hope; 
for his coming had always dispelled every shadow of sadness, 
and gloom could not live where he was. 

I have seen many such cases, where young soldiers who 
knew they must soon die refused even to let any correct 
account of their state go to their friends. It was a far more 
admirable sight to witness such examples of magnanimous 



226 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



self-forgetfulness^ in the indescribable tortures of wounds anc I 
amputations, than to look on any deed of courage on tht; 
field. In nearly all such instances, the fire of pure patriot-;; 
ism seemed to blot out all other considerations. I have seentj 
that high sentiment rise into the full glow of an all-absorbing.i 
passion, and leave its impress on the face after the hearfci 
had stopped beating. "My country! my country! I wishi 
I could do something more for thee before I die !" 

I have seen many who had seldom thought about their own i 
death — boys who had left homes of luxury, fondled by 
sisters' caresses and mothers' love — brought from the battle- 
field and laid down in a hospital to die. When the fading 
twilight of a joyous youth was going into the deep eclipse 
of Death's shadow, as it moved out, with unrelenting sternness, 
from the unknown Land, those who had thought of the 
last hour, so sure to come, and grown familiar with what cannot 
be seen till we reach it, — who had been introduced to the 
far-off Future till their Father's House became their home, 
— such boys, and the thoughtless ones, all had one solicit- 
ude alike : — " Land where my fathers died, — save her, 
God!" * * * 

* * ^ Young Osgood was buried at the Soldiers' Home. 
In recovering his body, they had to open seven coffins before 
they found the sacred dust of the loved one; and on the 
coffin was inscribed another name ! Oh, to gather the ashes 
of a stranger when the breaking heart can be healed only 
after the last act of affection has been done to the departed 1 
I speak of soldiers' burials elsewhere. 



I 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. 227 



XXXIII. 

Border-State Men and Border-State Loyalty. 

This great struggle to save the life of our nation has had 
to encounter obstacles hard to overcome, and prejudices almost 
insurmountable. The calm judgment of the thinking and 
patriotic head and heart of the North was all the time at 
work in concert with the corresponding class of men in the 
border States. 

We at the North stood far enough away from the mine to 
feel safe whenever the explosion might come. Our border- 
State brothers had not so easy a time. To us it was only 
the howl of a tempest which could not reach us; with them 
it was the precipitation of doom at their very hearth-stones. 

The serenity of the Northern millions was unbroken. We 
slept calm ; we waked free from all care except the national 
trouble."^ 



* In his strong and eloquent speech in the Senate-House, before the 
National League, Tuesday evening, March 31, Mr. Carrington, U. S. 
District Attorney, remarked, "1 love my native State with a pure and a 
holy love. When I stand upon her sacred soil, the very air around me is 
redolent with the sweet and solemn memories of the past. There lie en- 
tombed the bones of my ancestors, and there lingers in helpless age and 
poverty my beau-ideal of human perfection and the dearest object of my 
heart's alfection. Oh, I have a motive and cue to passion which our 
brethren of the North can never feel. They fight for their Government, 
their country, and their flag. We fight for the same Government, country, 
and flag, in which we have a common interest with them: in addition to 
this, we fight for our homes and firesides, and the green graves of our 
Forefathers, For my own part, all I regret is that the time I have spent in 
ihe court-house was not spent upon the field of battle. But in this matter 
[ have deferred to the judgment of my friends, who seem to think that 
iny voice is stronger than my arm." 

i 



228 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

They suffered with another trouble. Tliey loved our coun- 
try as well, and many of them better than we. But what 
Could they do ? No voice or pen can tell. They could not girdl 
the national armor on to go out to fight for our cause j for the 
first step they took from their threshold would be to the grave. 

The "iron mask" was put on the face of every man who 
lived south of "Mason and Dixon^s Line." He could speak; 
but his utterances would be smothered, perJiaps, — nay, to a 
dead certainty. For Genius, which is contraband sometimes 
even in civilized nations, could have no chance to illumi- 
nate the ill-guided, misjudging, and deluded South. 

The South, — as a South, — as a whole, is gone. This South 
has died of Negrophobia. This complaint has been charged 
on New England, — the real eagle's nest of the republic. Butj 
it is a great mistake. New England never had it; the North 
never had it. The North has put forth its best efforts to save j 
the South from rushing on to and into her own ruin. 

Who ever heard of such a noble offering as was made to 
the South, when a million of Northern men tried to put 
Fillmore again in the chair, when not a national tongue 
wagged against the effort? At that hour the South, as "a 
South," deserted us! 

Let us go on. They asked for Pierce : we gave him to them. 
Again, they asked for Buchanan. By hard work and doubt- 
ful scratches, this poor emasculated traitor got in. And the 
result we all know. Buchanan ! a man, or a thing, — who, after)! 
doing what harm he could to his country, tried in vain to 
hurt us abroad, where even the statesmanship of our enemies si 
discovered in advance that he was either a puling fool ini 
power, or a very Benedict Arnold (without his genius), to work : 
what ruin he could, in leaving an office he had disgraced by 
his incapacity and perhaps outraged by his treason. 

Yes ! The chances were altogether against any show for 
border- State loyalty. 

Those homes were as dear as ours. They were threatened. 



OF THE REBELLION. 229 

ours were not. They had wives whom they held in their 
bosoms, and they pressed them closer, and they became dearer ^ 
at every signal of danger. 

I need not say what these men have gone through ; nor can 
I tell their number. That record is kept on high. Not half 
of their sufferings or endurance will be known till the revela-. 
tions of "the last day.'' If heroism is to be measured by the 
amount of danger encountered and torture endured rather than 
sacrifice honor and principle, the men and the women of the 
border States will have the highest meed of praise awarded 
to them forever. 

That no charge of partiality or unfairness may be brought 
against the statements I make, which could be proved from a 
thousand sources, of the atrocities perpetrated on Union men 
by the Confederates, I quote from the resolutions unanimously 
adopted by the "Union Democratic Convention^' held iu 
Louisville the past month (March, 1863), composed of dele- 
gates from every Congressional District in the State. 

^^Resolved, That the people of Kentucky have suffered 
every insult and injury at the hands of the so-called South- 
ern Confederacy, and are stimulated by every motive of in- 
terest and honor to oppose and overthrow it. This Confede- 
racy has sought and now seeks to break up the Union, forever 
dear and necessary to them the people of Kentucky; and when 
by their often-repeated decisions they refused to join in the 
work of treason, infamy, and ruin, it trampled down their 
State Constitution, put up a weak and usurping Government 
over them, and placed pretended Senators and Congressmen 
in its conclave at Richmond, assuming to speak their voice; 
it invaded their State with armies, and sought to conquer and 
carry them away from a Union they revered to one they de- 
tested. It ravaged by bands of marauders — not soldiers — 
their fields time and again; robbed th(^n of their public re- 
venues and private property; destroyed their public records; 
burned their towns and houses; carried away their nou-com- 

20 



230 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

batant citizens into long and loathsome imprisonment, where 
many still languish ; murdered many of them, sometimes in 
their own homes and in the presence of their families, and 
sometimes by cruel and infamous deaths, extending their 
atrocities even to women and children, thus setting at defiance 
all the laws of civilized warfare; and these efforts have con- 
tinued and increased with the increasing aversion of the 
people of Kentucky towards all its wicked designs, and now 
threaten to break with fresh force upon that State and people. 
That therefore the people of Kentucky can never cease their 
efforts for their own protection, and condign punishment of 
the authors of these wrongs, and the complete overthrow of 
the rebel Confederacy; and all citizens of Kentucky, if any 
there be, who refuse to.support their State and fellow-citizens 
against such unprovoked wrongs and cruelties, or profess to 
sympathize with such enemies, are false to their allegiance, 
to friends, neighbors, State, and nation. That, nevertheless, 
of one thing the people of the revolted and the loyal States, 
and of the world, may rest assured : Kentucky will submit to 
such a despotism only when she has no power to resist it." 

Yes, the people of Kentucky have had to pass through the 
fire; and fire educates men quick. So have hundreds of 
thousands in Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and North Caro- 
lina. Of what they have gone through we heard only a tithe, 
and comprehended still less. 

But the hour of their emancipation is hastening. They 
alone can hereafter retard it. Their only salvation is to come 
in, heart and soul, with the cause of the Union, and give up all 
for that. Tlic}/ must give up slavery: they must not try to 
save it. Every effort to protract its life only hastens its doom, 
and prolongs the sufferings of its protectors. 

Come forward, then, and rank yourselves with the friends of 
the Union, and the whole North and the whole world are 
with you. 

The voice of God to the border States is soundino; with 



OF THE REBELLION. 231 

clarion notes : — " Come out from her, my people, that ye be 
not partakers of her plagues." 

^^ Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bauds 
of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the op- 
pressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ?" 

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and 
thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness 
shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy 
rearward." 

" Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor 
destruction within thy borders : but thou shalt call thy walls 
Salvation, and thy gates Praise. Thy sun shall no more go 
down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord 
shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning 
shall be ended." 

A most graphic illustration of this divine philosophy for 
the government of nations is found in a speech delivered by 
Cassius M. Clay before the law department of the Univer- 
sity (Albany, Feb. 3, 1863). In closing he says, — 

"When, long years ago, knowing the nature of slavery, we 
desired by peaceable means to check its power and to subject 
it to the civilizing influences of the age, North and South, 
we were told to be quiet : — time would cure all things, — Provi- 
dence would provide a remedy. In peace the time had not 
come ; and now in war the time has not come ! In vain we 
gave utterance to the S^oiceless woe' of the four millions of 
men, women, and children in slavery, and implored the eight 
millions of whites to let the oppressed go free. The prejudice 
of color bound the non-slaveholding whites, alike with the 
black, to the masters' chariot-wheels. See them now like 
dumb cattle driven to the slaughter; they are thrown in heaps 
into their last resting-places : no stone marks their dishonored 
graves. See now Hhe desolator desolate!' Within the shat- 
tered hovel, by the broken hearth-stone, the wan, expectant 
wife gathers her ragged, starving children. Alas I the husband, 



232 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

the father, and the brother will return no more ! Yes, Provi- 
dence at last sjDeaks ! By the wasted fields, the blighted in- 
dustries, the exhausted treasures, the desolated hearth-stones, 
the tears of the widow and the orj^han, and the shedding 
of blood. Deity calls upon us to execute justice. The mad- 
ness of the parricides has broken the shield of the Constitu- 
tion. Men of the North, having now the legal equitable 
power over slavery, I warn you too that God decrees liberty 
to all or to none! The hopes and fears of a life-struggle are 
with me crowded into a day. I would that you could feel as 
I do the urgency of the crisis, which determines the destiny 
of so many millions now living, and the vastly more millions 
yet to be born. Then would you be persuaded that as much 
as the liberation of the slaves is a ' war measure,^ yet far more 
is it a ^ peace measure' If you would have peace, be just; 
fox justice is the only peace J' 



OF THE REBELLION. 233 



XXXIY. 

The Commissariat of the Army. 

Soon after the uews of the bombardment of Fort Sumter 
reached New York, I had the pleasure of meetino- one eveniuj^ 
several accomplished military men (Europeans and Ameri- 
cans) at the Astor House, when the military situation of the 
country was thoroughly discussed. At their request, I drew 
up a brief presentation of their views for the pubhc press. I 
extract here a paragraph or two, as it appeared in the New 
York " Daily Times,^' from that portion which concerned the 
commissariat, this being the chief subject of their solicitude 
in view of the rising emergency of setting an immense army 
of new men in the field. 

Although the entire plan proposed was not adopted, it 
was gratifying to know that, with the full approval of that 
mature and gallant soldier, Major-Gleneral Wool,* it received 

* I can scarcely withhold from the reader a very characteristic and noble 
letter from this great and loyal-hearted man, written in the beginning of 
the rebellion. It was through strange councils that this accomplished 
soldier was so long kept from active service in the field, while his eye was 
not yet dimmed nor his natural force abated. 

"Troy, 12th May. 1861. 

"Dear Sir; — I thank you for your kind favor of the 7th instant. Absence 
from head-quarters has prevented me from acknowledging it before the 
present moment. 

"I am much gratified to find you— as well as all my friends— ready and 
determined to defend the right and our country in this moment of great 
peril. After thirty years of incessant efforts, treason has done its worst. 
I had hoped Virginia, having before her the examples of her great men, 
among whom stood Washington, the Father of his Country, would have 

20^- 



284 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

the best consideration of tlie Government, and perhaps all 
the advantages contemplated were secured by the energy of 
the Administration. 

Necessity or establishing a Distinct Department in 
THE Government to superintend the Commissariat. 
The commissariat of an army has never yet been complete 
in the organized military power of any nation. It is the last 
one that is provided for, and the first one that should be 
thought of. No nation in history ever lacked fighting-men. 
No nation ever has sent 2, perfectly equipped armymto a cam- 
paign, — equipment meaning every thing needed to eat, and 
drink, and wear, and sleep with, and fight in any emergency. 
Starvation has reduced the strongest garrisons. Men cannot 
fight on empty stomachs. Demoralization in armies grows up 
in most instances from incompleteness in the commissariat. 
Men cannot fight in a campaign without the means of fighting, 

remained steadfast in support of the Union. But^ alas ! she too has turned 
traitor, and disgraced -herself for all future time. 

"It appears to me a greater opportunity could not be presented for you 
to instruct the rising generation, by laying bare the villany and treason- 
able conduct of the demagogues of the Southern States. I know of no 
one more capable of doing justice to those whose object has been to rule 
or ruin our prosperous country. They preferred to rule in hell rather 
than serve in heaven. 

"But yesterday we were a great nation, and commanded the admiration 
of the world, with an empire extending from the frozen regions of the 
North to the burning sands of the South, containing a population of more 
than thirty-one millions, and enjoying a prosperity unparalleled in the 
history of nations. Every city, town, and hamlet throughout the land 
was growing rich as if by magic, and no part more prosperous than the 
South. How is it to-day ? I must leave it to you to describe its condition 
and the causes. Those who sow the wind must expect to reap the whirl- 
wind. Employ your pen, and lash the traitors naked through the world. 
No one can do it better than yourself. 

'• If I could wield the pen as well as yourself, I would make it more 
powerful than the sword. 

" Your friend, 

"John E. Wool. 

"To Hon. C. Edwards Lester, New York." 



OF THE REBELLION. 235 

any better tlian a mechanic can work without tools and ma- 
terials. 

It has been proved all through human experience that no 
army, while it was well supplied with the absolute necessaries 
for the business in hand, ever became ineffective, unless from . 
political or social causes. An obnoxious general, or a sudden 
change of events from any other cause, may produce some de- 
fection; but demoralization has seldom come from any other 
cause than an incomplete commissariat. The bitterness that 
takes hold of the soldier's heart when he is not well fed, well 
clothed, well armed, well encamped, is so great, that in a 
thousand conflicts for the cause of justice, country, and truth, 
mutiny has broken out, demoralization has come, and defeat 
has been the fruit of this state of things. 

In the Commissary Department of our hastily organized 
Union army, there is no lack of men or money, and, unless 
political or personal favoritism and nepotism prevail to a great 
extent, our national army will be well manned and well offi- 
cered. The only danger will be that the men will not be taken 
care of. There is money enough to take care of them all, and 
that money will be spent as free as water. There is already 
rolling over the great North a Pactolus of gold for this purpose. 
But there are some things that must be looked after now, since 
we have more men than we can equip and more money than 
we can spend, which, well considered, will not only secure our 
triumph in the vindication of our Government against all its 
enemies, but do it cheaper, better, and more effectually than 
it ever can be done if these prudential considerations are left 
out of sight. 

Although we are in spirit the most martial nation on the 
earth (hardly excepting the French), and although we are 
the most liberal, we have a set of people in America alwa3'S 
looking at the main chance, — always keeping the eye upon 
practical results. We have such unquenchable and irrepress- 
ible confidence in our resources, and ability to improvke 



236 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

them, we are very likely now to be " cauglit napping" in pro- 
viding " the tools'' for working out this great business we have 
taken in hand. C^sar himself was stabbed by a few assassins 
because he was taken unawares ', and yet Caesar had left a 
million of corpses of the enemies of Rome in the rear of his 
legions. England suffered deeply in her exchequer and her 
soldiers — more deeply still in their privations — in the Crimea, 
because the English commissariat was so incomplete. This 
was not owing to any lack of money, or men, or means; but 
political o-ed tape had swayed England so long that her army 
cost more to feed and clothe than any army that ever went on 
a campaign, and they were fed worse. Lord Eaglan himself 
had no good dinner for thirty days, until a French officer gave 
it to him. The appropriations for army rations were consider- 
ably larger than for the French. But their food was badly 
cooked, their provisions were in bad condition, and they were 
badly fed throughout. At the same time Soyer, the immortal 
French cook, having been sent by the Emperor to take charge 
of the kitchens and the stomachs of over one hundred thousand 
Frenchmen, gave every soldier and officer a fine meal twice a 
day, fit for any gentleman of taste, even an epicure, to eat 
and enjoy, at precisely three-fifths of the expense that it cost the 
British empire to feed badly the same number of men. The 
English soldier's camp cost more and was less comfortable 
than the Frenchman's. More Englishmen died from bad diet 
and unnecessary exposure than Frenchmen. Englishmen fight 
well always; but the French took the Malakoff. In fact, the 
French were in such a physical and moral condition through 
that campaign that they nearly ran away with the glory of it. 
There is no danger that our men will not be supplied with 
arms and accessories, equipments and munitions ; but on the 
very start we learn that some of our Northern regiments had 
nothing to eat but bad bread and raw pork, for thirty, or forty, 
or fifty hours. And even in the city of New York our troops 
have lain down on the wet ground with empty stomachs, and, 



OF THE REBELLION. 237 

when called upon to reconstruct bridges and relay railroad- 
tracks and lift locomotives from ditches, have worked in a 
hot sun, with no protection for the head except dark-colored 
caps, inviting sun-strokes, with nothing but uncooked provi- 
sions or musty crackers to eat, and, for a wonder of all the ages, 
not enough fresh water to drink, — and kept this up for forty- 
hours, making it a matter of heroism for soldiers to divide 
small rations of decent food between each other from regiment 
to regiment! Here is the danger; for this all comes from almost 
total neglect of a commissariat system, — a system which we 
have not got, and which we must have, or we shall have de- 
moralization in our army, following exhaustion of strength, 
bad treatment, cheating and robbing by speculators from the 
stomachs, the backs, the hands of brave men, all means of 
enabling them to fight those great battles which are to make 
this Government eternal. Soldiers can endure a great deal ; 
they expect it when they start; but they cannot suffer un- 
necessarily, either by robbery or neglect, without becoming 
demoralized. The better your men are on the start, the worse 
they become as you go on, if they are not looked after. When 
a free citizen offers himself, he means all there is in the uni- 
verse that he has any interest in, his own life being the last 
thing he thinks of. His family, his possessions, all fade into 
nothing. He only goes to protect his flag, which alone makes 
all his other treasures worth any thing. 

It has been the concurrent testimony of officers who have 
seen much military service in Europe, that no Government 
makes such generous provision for its soldiers on the march, 
in the camp, and in the field. The rations are not only far 
more abundant, but they are of better quality. This has 
been true from the beginning, barring those exceptional cases 
which only confirm the rule. No army is paid so high, and 
in none is so efficient a sanitary regime enforced. 

And it must not be forgotten that all this has been a work 
of impi'ovization, and that the history of war through all ages 



238 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

furnishes no parallel to the military preparations this country 
had to make. It has amazed the world, and revealed inex- 
haustible resources in the soil, the machinery, the labor, the 
energy, the genius and determination of the people, to which 
even they themselves were utter strangers. It has been a 
herculean work ; but the giant has grown strong in the midst 
of his labors. 

Since these considerations were first presented, two years 
have gone by ', and it will not be said that our million of men 
in the field have been neglected one hour, when it was in the 
power of the Government to administer to their necessities 
and comfort in the field. 



OP THE REBELLION. 239 



XXXV. 

A Summer Morning's Eide to the Oountry-Seat of tlie old 
Patriot and Poet, Joel Barlow.— A Hospital. 

It was one of those heated, pulseless mornings which are 
often felt in Washington in midsummer. The still air burned 
on the cheek; even the insects which bask in noonday sultri- 
ness had fled to their night-homes among the drooping leaves. 
The air could not move : every breeze was dead. The Po- 
tomac seemed to have stopped; for in its long and broad sweep 
to Alexandria it showed not a ripple or shimmer. Not a 
cloud moved over its bosom, which lay all unfolded, reflect- 
ing nothing but the great dome of the Capitol, as the sun 
rising behind it painted it, in all its grandeur and beauty, on 
the deep blue of the river. 

Looking out from my window, I was glad enough to see 
that my friend W had come up with his mettled grays. 

'^ I've called to take you in for a drive out among the hills, 
where we can get at least one mouthful of fresh air." 

Rising over the heights of Georgetown, a cool breeze came 
down the river from the northwest, and in making the cir- 
cuit around Fort Gaines the magnificent panorama of the 
Upper Potomac opened upon us, with its thousand hills, many 
of them crowned with tented encampments and waving flags, 
all threaded by the great river as it came down cool and 
sparkling from its picturesque mountain home. 

Leaving the public road, we entered a gate-way, by the side 
of which stood the lodge that in olden time had guarded the 
entrance to the magnificent estate of Joel Barlow, — the 
soldier, traveller, ambassador, poet, patriot, scholar, friend of 
science, and patron of arts. 



240 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

On his return from Europe, after an absence of seventeen 
years, he resolved to settle down and devote the rest of his 
life to his favorite pursuits, — letters, art, and society. His 
ample fortune enabled him to gratify all his highest tastes. 
He purchased an estate of two thousand acres near George- 
town, more varied and entrancing in its scenery, and more 
commanding in the wide sweep of its surroundings, than any 
other spot in the immediate neighborhood of the then youth- 
ful capital of his country, A fairer spot could hardly have 
been found. The estate was nearly all one park of fine old 
oaks of primitive growth, interspersed with many other kinds 
of the finest forest-trees, and the variety and magical effects 
of artistic culture of species that were lacking imparted 
higher embellishment to what nature had already made so 
beautiful. Abrupt hills, covered by gnarled oaks and lofty 
evergreens, still cast their shadows down into deep tangled 
dells and gorges, through which crystal brooks find their mur- 
muring, tinkling way. 

A winding road of a quarter of a mile brought us out on a 
high, commanding tableau of several acres, in the centre of 
which Barlow erected his substantial, massive, brick-and-stone 
mansion, and where he intended to pass his life and end his 
days. It is a spacious, grand, and cheerful edifice. A wide 
hall divides the main body of the house. The suite of large 
rooms on the east was devoted to the grand salon and the 
gallery of sculpture, painting, and rare objects of vertu ; on 
the west side was his great library and the dining-room. A 
circular carriage-road swept by the entrance; while on all 
other sides a vast and splendid garden extended, ornamented 
and enriched by every native and exotic tree, shrub, fruit, and 
flower that could live in the climate. Birds of all varieties 
of plumage and song filled this paradise-scene with music, , 
and sparkling fountains scattered their cooling spray on the 
summer air. Through ample vistas among the monarch trees, 
the most captivating landscapes opened in all directions. 



OF THE REBELLION. 241 

The city of Georgetown — even then gray as an old French 
town perched on an eminence — lay below; the rising capital 
was clearly seen in the distance; the wild scenery of the 
Upper Potomac mountains was unfolded on the north ; while 
on the south the broad Potomac itself, with its majestic tide, 
went sweeping by, in its long and tranquil reaches, to the sea.. 

Here Barlow clustered around him every thing which wealth 
need purchase, or a chastened fancy invent. But Kalorama 
(as he called his estate) had one charm besides, without which 
it would have been a desert to its master. His house was the 
scene of princely hospitality and elegant society. All the 
great, the learned, the accomplished, and the beautiful men 
and women of that wonderful age were, sooner or later, his 
guests. His old friend and companion Greorge Washington, 
alone, was not there. But there was Adams, and Jefferson., 
and Madison, and Monroe, all the fathers of the republic, 
all foreigners of rank and learning, artists and poets; and 
these circles were embellished by the most gifted and brilliant 
women of the age. 

The spirits of the great departed seemed still to haunt those 
stately halls ; and I confess that when I was aroused from my 
revery by the tap of my friend's hand on my shoulder, saying, 
^"^Now, Charley, shall we look through the wards first?'"' a 
cold shudder went through me; for it had only just occurred 
to me that I was standing in the very centre of 

^^The Small- Pox Hospital of the Army of the Potomac." 

I somewhat suddenly withdrew for a ramble in the garden, 
remarking to my friend I thought I would see that first. 

Under the shade of a broad-spread clump of flowering 
shrubs I sat down on a marble seat, to contemplate the strange 
contrast. The garden, evidentl}^, preserved the main outlines 
of the original plan. The walks, the trees, the grass-plats, 
were still there. But they showed no sign of the pruning 
hand. The fruit-trees were dying; the box had outgrown its 
borders; tall and noxious weeds were growing in wild luxu- 

21 



242 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

riance over the genial soil. The out-buildings were going to 
decay. The fences were falling down, and the whole place 
looked forsaken and desolate. One spot alone was blooming, 
and it was the oasis in the desert. The surgeon and his attend- 
dants had taken care of it, and it was one mazy labyrinth of 
flowers. How changed all this from other days, when travel- 
lers from a distance came to see what could be likened only 
to the gardens of Armida ! 

In those days Barlow was in the very noontide of his in- 
tellectual vigor. Born in the village of Reading, Connecticut, 
in 1754, he was now in his fiftieth year. His learning was 
vast in its range, and his devotion to science and literature 
had become the ruling passion of his life. Long familiarity 
with the great men, the languages, and the society of Europe 
had specially fitted him for the work he proposed to do. He 
resolved to write a great epic poem; and in ten years the 
" Columbiad" appeared, in what would even in our times be 
termed splendid style. During this decade he alternated his 
labors by making a careful and exceedingly valuable collection 
of materials for an elaborate history of the country. It will 
always be a fruitful source of regret to historians that this 
work was never executed. The scholars and statesmen of 
his time who knew Barlow's plan, and had seen chapters 
of the work already written, did not doubt that the writer 
would leave in his history an imperishable monument to his 

fame. 

Another enterprise also received his most earnest efforts. 
Feeling and knowing, with all statesmen, how much strength 
and glory are imparted to republics and empires by insti- 
tutions for the promotion of science and art, he labored un- 
ceasingly to persuade Congress to establish a national Insti- 
tute, modelled after the Institute of France. Washington, 
Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr, and all the illuminated 
men of the time, were his coadjutors; and the whole plan 
was ready for adoption, when two events occurred which ar- 



OF TIIK REBELLION. 243 

rested its progress,— the second war with England, and the 
departure of Barlow for Europe. 

One evening President Madison drove out to Kalorama for a 
private conversation with Barlow. They sat for several hours 
in the library undisturbed, engaged in an earnest conversa- 
tion on the condition of Europe, our relations with the great 
Powers,— particularly with Napoleon, then in the zenith of his 
splendor, and England, with whom it had now (1811) become 
plain enough we must have a second contest. 

No American— not excepting Jefferson, who had so recently 
retired to Monticello— understood the politics of Europe better 
than Barlow. He was popular in France, and was sure of 
a cordial greeting at the court of Napoleon. 

Barlow was requested by the President to accept the mis- 
sion to the Emperor; but it would involve the interruption 
and perhaps the final failure of his plans for the rest of his 
life. For several hours Madison was unable to shake his de- 
cision. But by persuading him that he would be able to ne- 
gotiate a treaty of commerce and indemnity for former spolia- 
tions, and thus not only secure justice for many of our citi- 
zen, but fortify our Grovernment with France in anticipation 
of an approaching war with our common foe, this appeal to 
Barlow's patriotism turned the scale. He consented to go. 
Alas ! when he turned to take a final look at the enchanted 
home he was leaving, he was looking on it for the last time. 

He sailed for France. He made no progress for several 
months, being, as he said, "continually baffled by the in- 
trigues of the Minister of Foreign Affairs,— the Duke of 
Bassano.^' 

It was only in October, 1812, that he was promised an op- 
portunity of cutting the Grordian knot. He was invited to 
a personal conference with the Emperor at Wilna, in Poland, 
where the restless genius of conquest and glory had halted 
on his way to Moscow. 

Barlow set out at once, and plunged into a Polar winter. 



244 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Over long tracts of his journey lie encountered all the horrors 
of hunger and cold. But his lion-heart never gave way; and 
he pressed on. 

He reached the little Polish town Zarnavi, and lay down 
to die. He was resting in a Jewish cottage, where he expe- 
rienced the time-honored hospitality of that ancient and vene- 
rable race. All the tenderness which the daughters of Israel 
are taught to show to the friendless "stranger within their 
gates" was shown to the dying ambassador. 

His last intellectual effort was a poem he dictated a day or 
two before he died. It was a withering satire of resentment 
on Napoleon for having so cruelly betrayed the hopes of the 
world. He was buried at Zarnavi, near Cracow; and his re- 
mains rest there to this day. 

^ ^ :^ ^ ^ jjc 

"We have been very fortunate in our hospital/' said the 
surgeon. "We have had a good many difficult cases; but 
we have lost very few. The air is pure, we have every thing 
we could desire, and we are almost as much out of the world 
as though we were on top of the Blue Kidge : so we have got 
along finely." 

I was glad to hear it of course; and although I have never 
felt much afraid of disease in going through hospitals in any 
part of the world, still I did not feel any special hankering 
for a more minute inspection of the sanitary condition of 
this private party who had gone out to pass the heated 
term at the country-seat of Joel Barlow. 

I breathed a little freer as the carriage rolled down the 
gravelled road. We stopped a few moments at the tomb of 
the Barlow family, which stands at the foot of the great lawn 
of sixty acres which slopes gracefully down from the southern 
front of the venerable mansion. 

The breeze had freshened ; fleecy clouds were drifting 
under the far-off mazarine-blue sky. One touch, and the 
grays snuffed the fresh air and left the road and the dust 



OF TUE REBELLION. 245 

behind them. We were all glad enough to go fast, — horses, 
passengers, and particularly the coachman, who declared that 
" if he had just known what a dreadful place he was going 
to, he would as soon have driven down to Tophet." 

" That's nice in you, my man, with that face of yours so 
pitted up that one would suppose you had had the small-pox 
all your life.'' 

"Yes, your honor. But I might carry it away in my 
clothes and give it to the babies.'' 

21* 



246 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXXVL 

The Law of Empire in the Western Hemisphere. 

Lord Bacon somewhere says, " Men discover laws ; God 
makes them." Philosophers interrogate Nature, and as fast as 
they find out her laws they mark the progress of science. 
The steam-engine, the printing-press, the cotton-gin, the 
daguerreotype, the magnetic telegraph, each has to be invented 
or discovered but once. One Columbus is enough for one 
hemisphere. 

It were well if statesmen should act on the same law as 
applied to the political world ; for both systeAs — the physical 
and the moral — came from the same source and are swayed 
by the same Master. The brain of Shakspeare sprung from 
the same moulding hand that chiselled the gothic peaks of 
the Alps and painted the last evening's sunset. Certainty 
of results, the conditions all being complied with, is the 
physical law of the universe. A thousand Galileos could 
not make the peasant of the Apennines believe that the sun 
will not rise to-morrow. Experience has taught him the un- 
varying order of nature. Why should we stop here and press 
along our bewildered track through the moral and political 
world, heedless of laws of action and of states, which just as 
inevitably control the fortunes of men and the fates of 
empires ? 

Let us trace these analogies into the political world, and 
see if we cannot find just the same certainty and precision in 
results there that Galileo and Newton discovered in physics, 



OF THE REBELLION. 247 

or Shakspeare and Alfieri domonstrated in tlie drama, or 
Cooper and Scott in romance. 

The question, then, meets us. What is the law of empire 
in this neio world ? There is a law of existence for all beings 
and all things, — from the mote that floats in the sunbeam to 
the Bengal tiger in his jungle. Historians have been busy 
with the general problem of empire from the earliest nations ; 
and Tacitus, Gribbon, and Sismondi have helped us to a better 
interpretation of the law which has controlled the growth and 
decay of the panoramic commonwealths that have gone by 
in their solemn movement over the broad fields of history. 
From such sources we learn that the frequent captivities of 
the Jews, and the repeated destruction of their gorgeous 
capital, followed by the carrying away of the whole nation 
into slavery, did by no means effect their extermination ) nor 
was that work brought about even by the remorseless perse- 
cutions to vv^hich they have been subjected by every nation 
under heaven except our own. The sons of Abraham are 
still a nation, and they are more numerous to-day than they 
were when they turned their farewell gaze upon the falling 
towers of Jerusalem. England has at la,st been compelled to 
acknowledge the Jews as citizens; and the scattered children 
of Jacob could to-day send a million of armed men to recover 
their own land, which has been cruelly robbed from them by 
Pagans, Othmans, and Christians. \Yhence sprang this vi- 
tality, — this power of endurance, — which makes them above 
all the people of the earth the eternal nation? They 
have always heen believers in the only true Gody and they 
have never lost their nationality. 

We glance at Switzerland, and we learn that she has 
always been free. The hunted spirit of liberty has always 
found a home there. The reason is plain. Among those 
everlasting mountains a race of men have been nurtured, 
amidst the sublimest scenes of the physical creation, where 
the hardiest characters have been formed, the sternest wills 



248 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

educated, and the deepest love of liberty inspired. Despot- 
ism never Jiom'ishes among mountains. 

Another illustration. France has learned that, although she 
may conquer, she can never hold in subjection the nations 
■which lie beyond her present boundaries. Those bounds are 
the Rhine and Alps on the east, the Mediterranean on the 
south, the Pyrenees on the southwest, and the ocean- 
waters on her w^estern and northern shores. She has often 
swept over them with her chivalric legions, and, sooner or 
later, her colors have waved from almost every capital in 
Europe. But she has generally lost her conquests as rapidly 
as they were made, and she has always been compelled to re- 
tire within her natural boundaries as soon as the tempest of 
revolution subsided and Europe settled back to its repose. 

England may seem to be an exception to this rule; but she 
only confirms it. She has till recently been long the great- 
est of the commercial Powers, and Providence gave to her 
the mission of spreading civilization. This she has done 
through the four quarters of the globe. But the time came 
for her to fall under the operation of the same law which fixed 
the fate of Rome. Like that mighty empire, she started from 
small beginnings. Nineteen hundred years ago, the Roman 
standard first floated on the shores of Britain. Then a race 
of barbarians, clothed in the skins of wild beasts, roamed 
over the uncultivated island. The tread of the Roman legions 
was then heard on the plains of Africa and Asia, and the 
name of Rome was written on the front of the world. Nearly 
two thousand years have rolled by, and Julius Caesar, and all 
the Caesars, the Senate, the people, and the empire of Rome, 
have passed away like a dream. Her population now num- 
bers less than that of the State of New York, while that 
island of barbarians has emulated Rome in her conquests, 
and not only planted and unfurled her standard in the three 
quarters of the globe which owned the Roman sway, but laid 
her all-grasping hand on two new continents. Possessing the 



OF THE REBELLION 249 

energy and valor of her Saxon and Norman ancestors^ she 
has remained unconquered and unbroken amid the changes 
that have ended the history of other nations. Like her own 
island, that sits firm and tranquil in the ocean that rolls round 
it, she has stood among the ages of man and the overthrow 
of empires. 

A nation thus steadily advancing over every obstacle that 
checks the progress or breaks the strength of other Govern- 
ments, making every world-wide tumult wheel in to swell its 
triumphal march, must possess not only great resources, but 
great skill to manage them. Looking out from her sea-home, 
she has made her fleets and her arms her voice. Streugth 
and energy of character, skill, daring, and an indomitable 
valor, exerted through these engines of power, have raised 
her to her present proud elevation. Salutes in honor of the 
birth of the present Prince of Wales were fired in America, 
on the shores of Hudson's Bay, along the whole line of 
the great lakes to Vancouver's Island, and their echoes re- 
verberated over the undiscovered gold-fields of Frazer's 
Kiver, — in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, in 
the Bermudas, at one hundred points in the West Indies, in 
the forests of Guiana, and in the distant Falkland Islands, 
near Cape Horn ; in Europe, throughout the British islands, 
from the Rock of Gibraltar, from the impregnable fortifica- 
tions of Malta, and in the Ionian Islands ) in Africa, on the 
Guinea coast, from St. Helena and Ascension, from the Cape 
to the Orange Eiver, and at the Mauritius ) in Asia, from 
the fortress of Aden, in Arabia, at Karak, in the Persian 
Gulf, by the British army in Afghanistan, along the Hima- 
laya Mountains, the banks of the Indus and the Ganges, to 
the southern point of India, in the island of Ceylon, be- 
yond the Ganges, in Assam and Arracan, at Prince of 
Wales's Island, and Singapore, on the shores of China; at 
Hong-Kong and Chusan, and throughout the settlements 
which had begun to open that new continental world of Aus- 



250 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

tralia to tlie breaking of a day of civilization. No prince 
had ever been born whose birth was hailed with rejoicings so 
universal among civilized and barbarous nations. It was 
tlie welcome to a new prince from 

" That Power whose flag is never furl'd, 
Whose morning drum beats round the world." 

But she has long ago learned that her provinces are held by 
a frail tenure ; that the branches of her power are already 
grown too large for the parent tree ; that the heart of an em- 
pire may go to decay, while a distant dependency continues 
to flourish. Nor do her statesmen, in all the pride and pomp 
of empire, always forget that a power greater than her own 
has left only feeble traces of its existence in Italy, and that 
'' the barbarian's steed long ago made his manger in the 
golden house of Nero." 

England is to-da}-, however, the mightiest Power in Ame- 
rica except our own. She is, in fact, the only European na- 
tion that ever stepped on this soil which had all the elements 
of endurance for governmental control under propitious cii- 
cumstanccs to perpetuate it. 

This will be apparent as we come to the main point in our 
argument, which is to show the law of empire in the 
WESTERN HEMISPHERE. It is Safe to Say that monarchy is 
the law of government in Europe; and it is quite as safe 
to say that democracy is the law of the cis- Atlantic world. 
The fact speaks for itself. With Europe the case is settled. 
Eepublicanism cannot flourish there. Hierarchy, rank, class 
legislation, unequal taxation, unjust laws, with centuries of 
time and thousands of precedents to sanctify the system] — 
such are the obstacles to democracy in Europe. When it is 
born in the throes of a wide-spread revolution, — as in 1848, — 
it dies in its cradle, it is stifled. All Europe knows this. 
This accounts for the great fact of the peopling of this con- 
tinent. The masses of Europe feel this in every pulsation. 



OF THE REBELLION. 251 

They pluck up the ancestral tree and bring it to grow in a 
more congenial soil. They have tears to shed, when they 
leave the homes of their fathers, which are nearly unknown 
to us nomadic Americans. We are always on the wing. 
Europeans cling to the hearth-stone closely until they leave 
it forever. The millions of men and women now in this 
land, who were born in Europe, bespeak the confidence 
which the great body of the people of the Old World feel 
in our political system, and show how little hope they had in 
the establishment or resurrection of liberty in those countries 
where their fathers are buried. A few gifted minds in 
Europe foresaw this actual state of things at the period of 
our War of Independence. Of such was Edmund Burke, 
whose words to the Prime Minister when he was attempting 
to force the jStamj? Act through Parliament are known to every 
reader. Nor can we ever forget, in this connection, the pro- 
phetic lines of Bishop Berkeley, fifty years before 1776, where, 
in speaking of the Anglo-Saxon race here, he says, — 

" Westward the star of empire takes its way ; 
The first four acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day : 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

But to be more specific in our illustrations. The New World 
was discovered by Italian navigators in the employment of 
Spain, Portugal, and England; and it was taken possession 
of in the name of Rome. Neither SjKiin nor Portugal owns 
to-day a rood of ground on the continent of America. There 
is but one kingdom on this continent, — Brazil; and that is 
entirely independent of the mother-country. Spain has lost 
all Jier vast possessions on this side of the Atlantic, except 
Cuba ; and this island she has held through no strength of 
her own, but solely through the jealousies of other European 
states, none of whom would allow it to change hands, or 
through tlie forbearance of this republic. 

In attempting to hold these American colonies, Spain and 



252 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Portugal attempted an impossibility, — and for the simple 
reason that they tried to force upon them the political 
system of the old monarchies of Europe. That system would 
not do here; it was not suited to the New World: it would 
have been easier to reconcile them to the temporal reign of 
the Pope over them. They were good Catholics enough, and 
bigoted withal, as they are to this day. But they protested 
as vehemently against the monarchical pretensions of the 
Prince of Eome as ever Protestants did themselves. Mon- 
archy would not do in America, even when imposed by the 
Vicar of God. The only apparent exception to this rule is 
Brazil. But her people voluntarily chose an imperial form 
of government, and wi^h it the sovereign of tlieir own 
choice. 

Thus the mighty empires of Spain and Portugal in the 
New World have thrown off the political system of Europe, 
and with it went all the ligaments of race, all the prejudices 
of a bigoted faith, all the allurements of rank, all the associa- 
tions of home, and all the souvenirs of history. 

Prance comes in here. Once, as we have shown in another 
place, she held much the larger portion of the continent which 
is now held by us. Her sway was undisputed from the mouth 
of the Mississippi to the roots of the Rocky Mountains, and 
from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the cliffs of Lake 
Superior. Her missionary scholars, her cavaliers, her sol- 
diers, explored the continent, erected fortifications, and gave a 
civilized language to a hundred barbarous tribes. The traces 
of her science still surprise us in our wilderness explorations : 
her fortresses are still standing; the names she gave to 
lakes, mountains, rivers, prairies, and stations still remain ; 
and she has made her own court language of the world the 
only medium of interpretation between millions of civilized 
and savage men along our northern borders, even up to the 
present hour. 

But when her strifes with England at home were trans- 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. 253 

ferred to America, she lost lier New World possessions. To 
found colonies and foster them through growth into independ- 
ence is the prerogative of England. France never founded 
a successful colony. She is a brilliant, heroic, and scientific 
nation ; but she has few adventures to recount in foreign 
lands. Of such adventures England's history is chiefly- 
made up. Although far ahead in civilization of her great 
rival in the times of the Crusades, she achieved far less in 
Palestine with her Grodfrey de Bouillons than England did 
with her Coeur de Lions. 

In attempting to hold her colonies in America, she found her- 
self unequal to the terrible struggle with England ; and thus, 
with the surrender of Montreal, in 1760, the French empire 
on this continent jJOLssed away. 

Next came England herself. Her statesmen who were in 
power from the beginning of the Revolution made a series of 
fatal mistakes in their American policy. Worse blunders than 
they were guilty of are not recorded in the whole history 
of politics. That England lost her Thirteen Colonies through 
sheer blunder is now too plain to require illustration or to 
admit of argument. She made a broad, distinction between 
the natural and political rights of Englishmen abroad and 
Englishmen at home. In claiming the imperial right to tax 
the colonies while they had no representation in Parliament, 
she laid down a principle utterly repugnant to the whole his- 
tory of English liberty and utterly subversive of the British 
Constitution. This was the rock on which her statesmen 
split her empire. Burke, Fox, Chatham, and Barre gave 
timely warning of the result; but it was unheeded until the 
bolt had fallen. 

Here we can advantageously pause a moment, to trace out 
the early workings of that great principle which lies at the 
hottom of the ivhole political system of the American world, 
and to vindicate which this domestic war is raging. Every 
citizen of a republic should comprehend his own Govern- 

22 



254 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

ment, — the causes wliicli gave it birth, the spirit of its 
CoDstitutioDj and the spirit of its founders. Without this 
clear comprehension of causes and results, he can never 
be prepared to serve the state with ability, nor even to go 
inteUigently to the ballot-box. In this respect the present 
generation are far behind their fathers. Those men studied 
Grovernment as a science] we study party politics to loin. 
The difference is infinite. 

Why, then, did England lose the United States, and icliy 
must she lose every one of her colonies in the New World? 
The Thirteen Colonies were forced into independence. They 
had no alternative but to be absolutely free or absolutely 
enslaved. The idea of a Declaration of Independence 
dawned slowly on the American mind ; and it was with the 
deepest reluctance that they at last took arms against the throne 
of England, by whose immovable base they were so fastly 
moored. The proofs of the loyalty of the colonists are scat- 
tered thick all through their history. There was not an 
American home in which the brilliant records of England's 
achievements were not read with pride. 

Up to the time of the embarkation of our fathers^ England 
was their country; and our ancestral history is the history 
of Britain. The great writers of England, till the period of 
the Commonwealth, wrote and thought for our fathers as 
much as for the fathers of any Englishman. Besides, around 
English history there is a charm which can be found in no 
other. The recent and the remote, — the plain and the ob- 
scure, — novelty sprung up by the gray remains of antiquity, — 
all the elements of the touching, the beautiful, the gloomy, 
and the grand, mingle with the chronicles of the father- 
land. With us all is familiar and modern. It is true, we 
read with pride and emotion our flithers' struggles, when the 
story leads off through the toils of the Revolution back to the 
gloom of the green old forests, and the desolation of Plymouth 
Landing, or the inhospitable banks of James River; but 



OF THE REBELLION. 255 

there the story ceases in America, and we must cross the 
water for an account of our antecedent national existence. 
We personally, then, have an interest in England, and we 
can betimes forget America, as it slumbered on, unwaked by 
the sea-gun of Columbus, while we retrace the glory of our 
ancestors, through successive generations, to the time when 
the Roman conqueror first planted the eagle of Italy on the 
rocks of Britain and returned to tell of a stormy island in the 
ocean, and of the rugged barbarians who dwelt in its glens 
and hunted on its cliffs. 

Yes, all this feeling in America was in favor of the su- 
premacy of England here. But there was a stronger feeling 
still in the hearts of the colonists. It was an instinctive love 
of liberty ; and although not a man in America could fore- 
cast the result, yet the great body of the American people 
were impelled by a political law, then not understood even by 
themselves, — a law which lias shaped and is shaping every 
institution on this side of the ocean. 

It is as necessary to have the history of nations before us 
when we try to deduce tlie laws of empire, as it is to have the 
phenomena of the natural world for determining the laws of 
nature. In this glance we are making at the empires that 
have come and gone over this continent, we shall infallibly 
arise at a clear understanding of. the law of government by 
which events are decided in our Western hemisphere. 

France first lost her American possessions altogether, and 
then Eno-land lost all her colonies here worth the struo-- 
gle of keeping. Those that were left have never paid the 
trouble or cost of governing. They have been too poor to 
govern themselves ; for self-government is, after all, an expen- 
sive afiair. Free states almost invariably tax themselves 
more than despots venture to impose. In proof we adduce 
our American cities, which are the most expensively governed 
municipalities in the world, — also our voluntarily sustained 
clergy, who, taken as a body, are the best-paid priesthood in 



256 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Christendom, — last of all, the tremendous self-imposed ex- 
actions for raising the Internal Revenue. 

France held on to Louisiana for a long period after the fall 
of her empire at the north. But, at the first suggestion of 
Jefierson for the purchase, Napoleon asked, <^ What will they 
give for it V " It is a vast territory, and it should be worth 
more than fifteen millions to the United States.^' " That is 
not the question. Fifteen millions is far more than it is 
worth to us. If we keep it a little longer, we shall get no- 
thing for it. Take the money.'"' This purchase of Louisiana 
blotted out French power from North America. 

It was soon after this event that the period of revolution 
came for the old colonies of Spain and Portugal. Hardly 
had Napoleon been driven from the scenes of his great 
achievements, when the tocsin of independence sounded 
from one end of the Spanish New World to the other. And 
we, cannot omit an allusion to a coincidence which we have 
n^er seen noticed. It was during the last days of Napoleon, 
and even while that terrific storm of May 4, 1821, was sweep- 
ing over St. Helena, tearing up most of the trees about 
Longwood, and shaking the humble dwelling where the hero 
of Austerlitz lay, that the last Spanish colony on this conti- 
nent wrenched itself away forever from the greedy and re- 
morseless grasp of the throne of Aragon and Castile. Her 
sale of Florida to our republic blotted her power from the 
continent. 

And, now, lioio stands the question of empire in the JS'ew 
World ? For all practical purposes, there is but one empire 
in North America at this hour; and we need not add that 
it is the dominion of this republic. Hussia, indeed, holds 
nominal sway over a vast territory north of the British pos- 
sessions, up to the Pole. But it very slightly concerns civili- 
zation to inquire what sceptre pretends to sway those ice- 
bound, inhospitable regions. England claims and professes 
to rule a broad, intervening belt, stretching across the 



OF THE REBELLION. 257 

continent next to our frontier. But she scarcely interferes 
with these colonies, and allows them to govern themselves. 
She knows that to assert such rights over them as she tried 
to vindicate over us in 1776 would rend those colonies from her, 
as she would be equally sure to lose them by a collision with 
the United States. A reciprocity treaty has already effected 
a practical annexation of those colonies to this republic. 
English statesmen have at last learned something of the law 
of empire in the New World. They do not venture to inter- 
fere materially with the wants or the wishes of their colonies. 
Indeed, the thing has been carried so far to the other 
extreme that Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick com- 
plain that in the withdrawal of the usual body of English 
troops, business grows dull in their chief towns, and that the 
Queen's Grovernment in other respects seems to treat the colo- 
nies too much as independent states and too little as loyal 
subjects. Thus the lesson has been taught that men in 
America must be free, and thus the lesson has been learned. 
Such considerations show very plainly the irresistible tend- 
ency to national consolidation on this continent, and demon- 
strate the absurdity of any attempt to dissever or break up 
this Republic. All the tendencies are in the other direction; 
and if Jefferson Davis were a statesman he never would have 
made so stupendous a mistake. His blunder, if possible, was 
more gigantic than his crime. 

22* 



258 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXXVII. 

The Quakers on the War-Path, 

This insurrection has disturbed the deepest fountains of the 
life of our people, — both the good and the bad. It has agi- 
tated the serenest waters. Even the members of the Society 
of Friends have been among the bravest and best contri- 
butors to the war. In the field their gallant sons have done 
all the duties of citizens as nobly as their fathers have per- 
formed them in the calmer scenes of domestic and civil life. 

At one of the regular meetings of the Society of Friends 
(Orthodox) a committee was proposed to be raised to inquire 
into and attend to the cases of young men, sons of members, 
who it was supposed had, in clear violation of all the standard 
rules of the Society, enlisted for military service in this 
dreadful war. It was notorious that a large number of this 
class had actually shouldered the musket and marched with 
their regiments; and it was strongly suspected that many of 
these boys had actually received the warmest blessings of 
their demure but none the less heroic mothers, and the in- 
spiring encouragement of gentle sisters, on their departure. 

But, as the case had been brought up before the meeting 
by some of the strictest Friends, it became necessary to give 
it the most serious consideration; and the members of the 
committee were duly proposed. 

The first rose, with great dignity, and, with that inimitable 
serenity which always characterizes the proceedings of the 
Orthodox Quakers, requested to be excused, on the ground 
that he could not conscientiously serve in that capacity, since, 



or THE REBELLION. 259 

very much to liis pain and sorrow, among the young mem- 
bers who had enlisted for the war he had a son! 

Another member desired to be excused on the ground that, 
without his knowledge, two of his sons had not only joined 
the army, but were already in the field. 

Finally, the third member rose, and stood some moments 
without speaking. He was a venerable man : he looked like 
the patriarch of the solemn assembly. His hair was white, 
but his cheek looked " like a rose in the snow.'' " Friends, 
we in our weakness cannot foresee the purposes of the great 
Father of all things; nor should we attempt to scrutinize 
his almighty designs. It becomes my duty to inform you 
all that my youngest son, two of my grandsons, and several 
of my nephews, have also taken up arms in the defence of 
our beloved country; and I am very much afraid that I could 
not serve on the committee with any good to our cause." 

A reverent silence brooded over the assembly, and for a 
protracted interval the silence remained unbroken. At last 
the " mover of the motion" rose, and proposed that " the 
whole matter should be temporarily postponed." 

A very large number of the brave young men of the So- 
ciety of Friends (Orthodox) have gone to the field, and they 
have fought with a heroism, and a faith in the endurance of 
the republic, worthy of the loyalty of their Society to the 
great principles of humanity and religion. I can make no 
estimate of their numerical force. 

But by far the larger number of the Society of Friends 
"vvho have joined our army belong to what is popularly known 
as " Hicksites." Theij embraced the great cause on the 
start. From Pennsylvania. New Jersey, Indiana, and other 
States, it is quite probable that not less than five thousand 
Quakers have enlisted and fought in our armies. Call them 
" Orthodox" or " Hicksites," it matters little to us : so long 
as our fellow-citizens are ready to fight and die for the coun- 
try, they are our best-beloved brothers. 



260 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXXVIII. 

The Nation Taxes itself to Eedeem its Pledges and Sustain 
its Honor. 

Never^ perhaps, was such a sight witnessed as was seen 
when the Congress of the United States last year enacted the 
Ta^ Bill. All direct taxes are odious. Men do not like to 
have the tax-gatherer come round and unceremoniously thrust 
his hand into the pockets of his neighbors. 

Sir Robert Peel said, — 

^' We have taxed the dependent classes into extreme pov- 
erty. Now, to raise money to relieve the Exchequer, we 
must reverse the order of our financial policy, and tax the 
rich ! Tax incomes. People who have revenue can pay, 
Hcmove the duties on bread, and I will take care of the rest. 
The corn-laws must be abolished. Cobden is right.^' 

On this system our tax was laid for internal revenue. 

We saw and knew that great and unforeseen emergencies 
were impending. A country was to be saved, — not lost. We 
let our representatives in Congress know that we were all in 
earnest, — that we must have all the money we needed — no 
matter how large the sum — to defend from sacrilege the old 
shrines where we had always worshipped. So Congress had to 
pass a bill to tax all our people to pay the interest on any amount 
of money we might borrow from each other to carry on the war. 

Not a decent member of Congress dared to go home and 
confront his constituents until he had voted for one of the 
extremest and most intolerable measures of taxation ever 
heard of on the earth ! 

But this was the act of the people. They meant all they said. 



OF THE REBELLION. 261 

''The Union! It must and shall be preserved." "We will 
foot the bill." It was the grandest mortgage-deed in history ! 

'•'■ We will pay" — whom ? Each other. " My lands and 
tenements, my household goods, — whatever I have or may 
have — come^ take all; and, if this fail, come and take me, 
and I leave my all for my share, and go with the flag.'' 

Here was a basis for making a national debt much greater 
than the debt of England, and due and timely provision 
made, not only for the payment of its interest, but with the 
dead certainty of leaving a balance every year, by which the 
sinking fund should absorb the princif)al at an early period. 

Who ever heard before that the people of a nation asked 
to be taxed ? Who ever before heard that a nation com- 
manded its representatives to tax them ? Was it pianos, 
silver plate, billiard-tables, alone ! No ! the people came 
rushing up to the financial altar, eager to pay their quota to 
sustain a common government erected for the common good, 
and sustained by the universal will. 

This income tax went into operation. It touched every 
house and home and heart in the country. It spoke its own 
language. 

It said, '^ I come for money to carry on the war." 

We gave ; and we will give, till the last shot has left the 
locker. 

In this great crisis, a good man was wanted to put this law 
into execution. That man was found. 

Mr. Chase chose Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts. He 
accepted the post. It was a hard and a thankless task to 
fulfil his mission. But he went at it with the firm resolution 
and the crystal head with which such men always undertake 
public duties. He entered on chaos ; he evolved light. He 
saw confusion; he brought out order. He had a difficult 
task. For the second time in the United States, a direct tax 
had to be laid on the income and the real and personal pro- 
perty of our people to sustain the national Government. 



262 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Every thing now depended on the way of carrying this 
statute out. 

Governor Boutwell took the work in hand as a matter of 
business ; and he went through his course of duty so well^ 
that few or no men had occasion to complain against him, al- 
though he had to make over one hundred decisions, to deter- 
mine the meaning and application of the Internal Revenue Law. 

This is extraordinary ; for such a case never had existed, 
and perhaps never will again. 

The excise law was passed July 1, 1862, and the country 
had two mouths' notice of the time when it would take effect. 
During these two months, the factories, distilleries, and brew- 
eries were in operation constantly. When the 1st of Sep- 
tember came, the productions not only fell off, but many 
establishments were shut, and in others the business was 
materially diminished. The excessive production of July 
and August filled the warehouses, consumed the raw mate- 
rial, especially cotton, and left the country without the means 
or the inducement to continue business upon an extended 
scale. Consequently, the revenue was for a while moderate, 
inasmuch as the people had been consuming the stock of free 
goods. Almost the entire product of whiskey and tobacco 
for the months previous to February was exported. 

The receipts are now about $1,300,000 per week, and in- 
creasing each month. 

One of the most gratifying facts in the whole matter is the 
readiness of the people to meet the unusual demands made 
upon them by the provisions of the excise law ; and in none 
of the States are taxes more readily paid than in Maryland, 
Kentucky, and Missouri. 

Should the war be closed during the present year, our war- 
debt will be less than $1,500,000,000, the interest on which, 
when funded, will be about 880,000,000, while the revenue 
from the excise law alone will reach one hundred and fifty 
millions, for the year 1863-64. 



OP THE REBELLION. 263 

The law was put into operation on the 1st of September 
last; but there were many delays, and many circumstances 
calculated to keep the income at a point below the probable 
average in future. The stamp law was not understood; 
we were not able to obtain the engravings until December ; 
and the supply of stamps was not adequate till the first of the 
year. The use of stamps is, in fact, optional with the people, 
and continues so till the first of this month, — June, 1863. 
The first arrival in California was since the 15th of February; 
and the entire receipts for stamps from the country west of 
the Mississippi River do not amount to one hundred thousand 
dollars. The receipts from stamps previous to March 1, from 
the whole country, were §3, 603, 934 85, and the total revenue 
to that date is 820,598,336 62. 

With the return of peace in the South, our revenue would 
exceed $225,000,000. Should a tax be levied upon cotton 
of two to four cents per pound, the income could be increased 
$20,000,000 at least over the largest sum named. If the 
war is carried over into the year 1864, our chief additional 
resource for a time will be to levy a tax upon cotton, without 
drawback upon exports. This will be a necessary burden 
upon our manufacturers and upon the manufacturers of Eu- 
rope. Had England and France disclaimed any sympathy 
with the rebels, the rebellion would have been suppressed 
long ago. Were England and France to disavow all sympathy 
with the Confederacy, and compel their subjects to observe an 
honest neutrality, the days of the rebellion would soon be num- 
bered. If, however, the rebellion is encouraged, England and 
France will share the loss and suffering. 

Thus manfully and in straightforward style did the Ame- 
rican people show the earnestness with which they entered 
into the serious business of taking care of their country. 

They pledged their lives in the field, their fortunes at home, 
and, above all, their sacred honor. 

That debt of gratitude loill he paid. 



THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XXXIX. 

What Our Eepublic Needs Now. 

All nations that have made any mark on the world, or left 
any record in history, have had a strong nationality. A 
Swede never was taken for a Russian ; a Spaniard never was 
mistaken for an Englishman ; a Turk never was supposed to 
be a Frenchman ; a Scotchman never was taken for a man 
born on another soil. So we might go through all the nations 
of modern time; the same thing would hold everywhere true. 
It was so with the ancient nations. Wherever an Egyptian 
went, he was at once recognized as having come from the 
banks of the Nile. Wherever the Greek went, men looked 
upon him as a traveller from the land of Pericles and Homer. 
So, too, no matter how far he wandered from the Eternal 
City, the Roman was always looked upon as a man just from 
the protecting shadow of that great empire. 

But how is it with Americans ? And yet we have a wonder- 
ful history. We have crowded more memorable deeds within 
a narrow space, during the brief period of our existence, than 
any other nation that ever flourished. We have crowded 
more illustrious names into our annals, and our record in 
after-ages will be read with more astonishment than we now 
read the record of the most romantic achievements of the 
nations that have gone before us. But there is no people 
where so few of the population are swayed so little by the 
sentiment of nationality. True, when Americans meet 
abroad, they at once recognize in each other a common senti- 
ment ; but at home they seem to have little in common 



OF THE REBELLION. 265 

with each other. There is more sectionalism in America 
than in any other great nation. Take the British empire, on 
which the sun never sets; no British subject can be found ia 
the circuit of the globe who does not represent the national 
sentiment of his empire. No Englishman will be heard any- 
where to decry or disclaim his queen. There is no sectional-; 
ism in the British empire ; there is no sectionalism in France ; 
there is no sectionalism in Russia, nor in Prussia, nor in 
Spain, nor even in dilapidated Portugal; and yet none of 
these nations have inherited so great a treasure in the form 
of guaranteed civil rights, nor so great a treasure in all the 
aggregate forms of good which we denominate civilization. 

The existence of sectionalism in America explains the 
otherwise incomprehensible fact of the lack of a spirit of 
nationality. Within sight of the dome of our Capitol can be 
seen Mount Vernon, the home of the Father of this republic. 
It is allowed to be put up at auction by its unworthy and sordid 
proprietor, — in whose veins, thank God, no drop of Wash- 
ington's blood flows, — and when, forsooth, it does not bring as 
much money as his avarice greeds for, an appeal is made to 
the women of America, and they come forward to purchase 
this home of the great patriot, to rescue it from its present 
hands. If there had been a national sentiment in America, 
that spirit of nationality would have proclaimed itself long ago, 
in an act which would have been everywhere applauded, 
and the tomb at least with the home of Washington would 
have been purchased by the nation and guarded in safety 
and veneration, as the Mecca of liberty in the Western world. 
Again, every dollar thit is expended for the construction of 
ships-of-war for our navy is begrudged. We are unwilling even 
to maintain a line of steamers between New York and Liver- 
pool ; and much less do we seem disposed to hold any steam 
communication with South America. It is next to an im- 
possibility to convince our people that any administration is 
willing to vindicate our international rights on the Isthmus, 

23 



266 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

although it is the natural and necessary highway to the 
western borders of our empire. Again, while the nation is 
clamoring for a railroad across the continent to the Pacific 
Ocean, no administration seems to have the will to press it 
upon Congress. It is recommended session after session, but 
it remains a dead letter. These are only a few illustrations 
that we could bring to show that the leading men of America 
— those who govern us, who sit in our legislatures, State 
and national — are insensible to the claims of a sentiment of 
nationality. There is a spirit of jealousy between the repre- 
sentatives in Congress from one section of the nation, which 
shows itself in opposition to any benefit or advantage to be 
gained by any or all other sections. New York, the commer- 
cial metropolis of the Western world, has been trying for a 
quarter of a century to have a mint established there, even if 
it were only a branch mint. But we have been obliged 
to send one thousand million dollars to Philadelphia to be 
coined, at great expense and still greater inconvenience and 
protracted delay. In all our public debates this spirit of 
sectional jealousy arises, and it mixes itself up with all our 
legislation, and we perceive the spirit everywhere. All these 
things indicate a lack of national spirit. Now, this can be 
accounted for, it is true, in part, by the fact that we have not 
had time to become a complete nation. John C. Calhoun 
said, shortly before he died, " that we loere not a nation, hut 
only a confederation of nations .'' This would not be true 
if everybody at the North had a national sentiment, or if 
everybody at the South had a national sentiment. But it 
happens that there are so many diversities of opinion, and so 
great a lack of national sentiment, in every part of the country, 
— almost as much in one part as in another, — that it is only 
when some great national event transpires that we call out and 
create for the moment a common sentiment of nationality. 
It is then participated in by the great masses. 

We have had a few national men in America, and they 



OF THE REBELLIOx\. 2G7 

bcive helped to preserve among our people all the nationality 
we have. The fathers of the Eevolution and the early states- 
men of the republic agreed so well in every crisis that they 
left us an example of nationality. But it was chiefly because 
they were great men, lived in moulding times, and were com- 
pelled by the necessities of the case to aggregate opinions 
and principles as well as to combine their ^action upon 
common points of effort. 

After their time, however, the nation was obliged to pa.^s 
through convulsions such as the war of 1812 on the question of 
fighting England, or in 1820 on the question of compromising 
the slavery matter, or in 1830 on the question of the Union 
as against nullification, or in 1850 on the question of the 
Union as against the negro "business," and more recently on 
the Lecompton difficulty. 

The instances we have adduced show the prevailing lack 
of a national sentiment. This has arisen chiefly from"^ three 
causes :— 1st, Tranquillity in our republic, and peace with 
foreign nations; 2d, The immense influx of foreigners, who 
did not comprehend the institutions of our country well 
enough to act as they would have acted in their own nations; 
and, 8d, This general mixing up of all the nations of the 
earth m the eager strife for gain, which has demoralized 
this country to a greater extent than all other causes put 
together. 

One of these causes, although it may not be primary in its 
character, should not be lightly passed over. We had hitherto 
lived in such tranquillity, and were so exempt from foreign 
wars, that we have not had our own domestic troubfes 
blotted out by greater causes of anxiety in our conflicts with 
other nations. It was a maxim of statesmanship in Eome, 
and it has since been made so in Paris, to divert public atten- 
tion from local and domestic interests to the more engrossing 
anxieties of foreign struggles. All Ronum statesmen, how"^ 
ever much they might differ in other things, agreed that the 



268 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

safest way to insure tranquillity in Rome was to send its 
legions into foreign nations to battle. Rome was always 
tranquil while a great foreign war was going on ; and that 
stupendous republic had been in existence seven hundred 
years before the officers of peace had an opportunity to shut 
the gates of the temple of Janus. 

They remained shut for twenty-five years ; but historians 
agree that during that period many of the seeds were sown 
for the decline which ended finally in the fall of the Roman 
empire. 

In our own history we find some faint illustration of the 
truth of this philosophy. When one generation had died 
after the Revolution, and the question of the complete asser- 
tion of our indejjendence came up, there was a strong dis- 
inclination on the part of many of our people to another 
conflict with England. True, the memory of the terrible 
struggle of the War of Independence was yet fresh in the 
recollections of many of our countrymen, and could they 
have decided the national councils they would have voted 
against another war. But a new generation had come on, 
and, although young men were disposed to go forward in a 
further and final vindication of the rights of the country 
against the oppressive measures and the galling insults of 
Great Britain, it was with the greatest difficulty that the 
Congress of the United States could be persuaded to make 
the war of 1812. But when the war had once been pro- 
claimed, the national sentiment of the nation was aroused, 
and it launched itself forward into the contest with heroism 
which ended in victory. At the close of that war the nation 
was so much occupied in the serious business of gaining a 
livelihood, that we went on quietly for many years, so much 
occupied in our own affairs that we allowed many an insult 
from a foreign Power to pass by without retribution. Mexico 
at last assumed such ground as could not be admitted, and 
that war began. The President called for fifty thousand 



OF THE REBELLION. 2G9 

volunteers, and in thirty days he had three hundred thou- 
sand. Young America launched itself on the plains of 
Mexico, and the spirit of nationality became the guiding 
spirit of the hour. There was, a few years ago, some na- 
tionality inspired by the spectacle of ten or twenty war- 
steamers sent off to battle with some half-barbarian despot in. 
Paraguay. But we shall not witness either the resurrection 
of the nationality we have hitherto inspired, nor, much less, 
the creation of a universal sentiment of nationality, except 
in some decisive conflict between the United States and a 
great foreign nation. 

We are not pleading in behalf of war. But there are mis- 
fortunes that fall on nations infinitely greater than those which 
are entailed by war. Wars do not cause the extermination of 
nations, nor inflict half the trouble that comes from the decay 
of a national sentiment. No nation was ever yet extermi- 
nated by battle until it had already lost the spirit of its na- 
tionality. A nation is nothing more in the aggregate of 
states without this sentiment than is a man in the midst of 
bis fellows if he loses all control of his own will. Switzer- 
land has maintained her nationality, and she has remained 
unbroken and unconquered for ages. So has Hungary, who 
showed a few years ago how strong she was in sentiment 
when she levelled that brave blow on the breast of her spoiler. 
France is always fired by nationality, and in all her pride she 
exults in the glory which a Napoleon dynasty sheds over her. 
So, too, with England. All Britons rejoice in the supremacy 
of the home Government. We do not, of course, embrace 
Irishmen, because England has never been able, during the 
five hundred years of her despotism, to blot out the national 
sentiment of that brave people. 

The result of all this is, that any American statesman who 
is afraid of a collision with one of the first Powers of Europe 
is not fit to have any voice in the national councils. We are 
very proud of our Washingtons and Jeffersons and Jacksons 

23* 



270 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

and Constitutions and Capitols; and we brag of the whole 
thing every 4th of July. 

But foreigners have much less respect for us as a people 
than we suppose. They respect our history, because it is filled 
with the achievements of our Withers. They all look upon 
us with a kind of wonder, because the country is so big, and 
they innocently suppose big people must live here. They 
respect our steamers, because they outstrip in speed those of 
other nations. They respect our telegraphs, because we have 
fifty thousand miles of them. They respect our clippers, be- 
cause they are the fastest sailers in the world. They admire 
our daguerreotypes, because they are the best. But, after all, 
Americans make a great mistake if they suppose that Euro- 
peans do not curl up the lip with some scorn when we talk 
about coming in collision with the Old World. 

It is plain enough that we shall never be recognized 
heartily, socially, and respectfully as the First Power, or even 
among the very first, until the pride of foreign monarchs, so 
often displayed, shall be humbled in a terrific and, if need 
be, a long struggle for the vindication of the right of men 
to self-government. 

In the Old World it is prescriptive right, hereditary pri- 
vilege, ecclesiastic power, with all the retinue of titles and 
powers, and all other things, which command popular admira- 
tion. Here we have none of these questions or things, nor 
do we need them. But we must have something to supply 
their places ; and this something can be had only by the dis- 
play of that national power which shall prove great enough 
to protect all weak nations, and strong enough to defy strong 
ones, even if they melt all their decrepit carcasses into one 
body. 

In this direction it is plain to see that the fates of America 
are being drifted by events. 

Our ne^wspapers agitate a few of their readers every 
morning by long and tedious despatches from Washington, or 



OF THE REBELLION. 271 

Halifax, or Mobile, or some other place, about what Lord 
Napier has been saying, or what Lord Lyons is about to say, 
when by a little pluck in our statesmanship this telegraphic 
business would all be snuffed out. 

Has it come to this, that England will attempt to establish 
a police over American waters, and make an arrangement 
with Nicaragua, or Costa Rica, or Guatemala, or San Salvador, 
or New Grenada, pledging her imperial power and her irre- 
sistible arms to keep American pirates off their coasts ? We 
do not believe that England is foolish enough to offer her 
services in that business, where it is perfectly certain that 
it would be considered an insulting interference that would 
sweep one or the other of our Powers from the ocean. But 
British statesmen understand very well that our politicians 
have more faith in gas than they have in gunpowder, or firm- 
ness, or dignity, or, above all, in a national sentiment. 

The Peace Society preaches to us about not going to war, 
precisely as good nurses talk to children about not eating 
sweetmeats and sugar-candy; but it unfortunately happens 
that as long as confectioners make these things children will 
eat them, and their fathers and mothers will give them to 
them besides, although it may just as inevitably follow that 
the services of the family doctor cannot be dispensed with 
when the colic comes. 

Young nations are young children, and old nations are in 
their second childhood. 

Our nation must be consolidated ; and nothing can do it 
but to create a common interest, either for attack or defence. 
The heroism of every nation has been the only sentiment 
out of which nationality has been created. Without appeal- 
ing to this, no great Government would have become what it 
has been ; without this, no nation would achieve any thing. It 
is all vain to wait " for the good time coming,^' — that political 
millennium when all nations will lie down together and kiss 
and smother one another to death with kindness and fraternal 



272 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

love. This is all nonsense. This is stuff to throw to cats 
and pups. It means nothing; for while humanity lasts it 
will be made up of men and women, and men and women 
are made up of will, of power, of heroism, of truth, of laws, 
of insults, of passions, of every thing human or divine. 
These qualities exist in human nature itself. 

They are eternally in conflict, even in the individual man, 
or woman, or child, and they will remain there, unless by 
eternal duration virtue at last achieves a complete triumph 
over vice, and judgment and reason assume undisputed em- 
pire over all the prostrate passions. But even under God's 
own immediate sway, where inspiration teaches us that he 
has had immediate control over spirits without flesh and 
blood, and, consequently, without those types of passion that 
belong to the human race, he has had angels and devils, — on 
the one side of him a heaven filled with the choral music 
of uncounted seraphs, and on the other a hell filled with the 
bowlings of damned spirits. People who suppose they are 
to pass through this universe in easy-chairs, never feeling 
one of the blasts of misfortune nor having their cheek 
visited by any rude wind of adversity, — people who are sigh- 
ing forever for " that good time'' will have a precious long 
time in getting it. The universe is a living, flaming, pas- 
sionate, active thing. It is no place for people to go to sleep ; 
for, even if they go to their graves, the day of resurrection 
will brino- them out. 



OF THE REBELLION. 273 



XL. 

Mr. Lincoln :— "What Kind of a Man— What Kind of a Presi- 
dent—lie is. 

When Mr. Lincoln entered the Presidential mansion, he 
could not have answered either of these questions. It is a 
matter of serious doubt if he could do it even now. 

It was once a post for the retirement of a statesman of well- 
earned fame, for his coronation when he had earned the su- 
preme honors of the state. In times of peace our great 
public men found their legitimate way to the Home of the 
Presidents (as Washington wished to have the White House 
called). Those honors then were always worthily won, and 
the laurel wreath kept green on the brows of all their 
wearers, — at least till the last of the primitive chieftains went 
to his untroubled rest under the shades of the " Hermitage." 

Yes, those men lived to reap the rich rewards of peace 
after their battles, of repose after their toils. 

But it was no pillow of down on which Abraham Lincoln 
was invited to lay his head. He thought he understood 
something of what had been committed to him ; and when 
he stood on the eastern portico of the Capitol, all blanched 
before the surging sea of anxious men and women who were 
waiting to learn '^What of the night?'' would bring from 
the new sentinel, he uttered words to which the events of the 
future were to give an astounding and unforeseen significance. 

Lincoln's Presidency was a heritage of trouble from the 
start. No good man in his senses would have taken the 
honor, if he could have foreseen a tithe of its bewildering 
heart-achings, — the treason, the blood, the agony it would cost 



274 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

the noble nation, betrayed by its own children, immolated be- 
fore his own eyes, — or the home-troubles it would bring to 
his fireside. 

But the men who voluntarily assume the direction of public, 
or even private, affairs, must be ready for any emergency. 
Nobody has any right to assume that every thing will go right. 
Nor is there any ground to suppose that Mr. Lincoln did. 
On the contrary, his inaugural address clearly proved that his 
eye had pierced the probable future, — not, indeed, all that 
future which has since become history, for human ken could 
not reach so far. But that he has had to confront more sur- 
prises and grapple with more difiiculties than could have been 
known to or anticipated by any human intelligence, will 
hardly be denied. 

Some peculiar and fortunate qualities in his character have 
enabled him not only to save the country from ruin, but also 
to inspire and sustain a most healthy state of the body politic, 
in the midst of the avalanches and whirlwinds which have 
struck and shaken our whole system of civic life. 

His first characteristic is self-control. He seldom, if ever, 
loses his equanimity. This gives room for the constant exer- 
cise of his judgment. 

His second characteristic is his good, plain, home-made^ 
common sense. '' This is a quality," Southey said, " rarer 
than genius." So far as all the real business of life is con- 
cerned for men or nations, strong common sense is the surest 
and safest guide. Through this alembic all the unfriendly 
and dangerous elements of this terrible conflict have had to 
pass. 

Another quality has mingled itself, by the laws of affinity 
in moral chemistry, with Mr. Lincoln's executive acts, — humor, 
honhommie, good, nature. Men have complained of him 
on this ground. They have charged him with levity. But 
these critics should remember one of the fine sayings of Mal- 
sherbes, the great Frenchman, '^ A fortunate dash of pleasantry 



OF THE REBELLION. 275 

lias often saved tlie peace of families, — sometimes an empire.'' 
It is fully believed that Mr. Lincoln's cheerfulness has dissi- 
pated many a cloud that lowered around the " Home of the 
Presidents," and left its fragments ''in the deep ocean buried.'' 
And, last of all, his firm faith in the durability of the republic 
is unbroken. All these qualities, united, make him what he is. 



276 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XLI. 

Our New States.— The Pounding of Wilderness Oommonwealtlis. 
They must be protected.— How. 

By the statesmen and philosophers of antiquity the high- 
est honors were awarded to the founders of free states. The 
highest honors America has won have sprung from this same 
source. 

Would to God we had never reversed this principle of 
eternal justice in the building of empires and the distribu- 
tion of honors I 

If we had always stood fast by the spirit and integrity of 
the political maxims of Seventy-Six, what man or angel 
could measure the strength and prosperity of our nation now ? 
Who could tell how far humanity itself would by this hour 
have travelled on its endless road of happiness and gran- 
deur ? 

But the Constitution of 1789 found slavery a part of the 
social system of every one of the thirteen States, except Massa- 
chusetts. -These States, however, while colonies, had always 
regarded African slavery as a burden, and a curse on the achieve- 
ment of their independence. They held " involuntary service, 
except for crime," as a disgrace to a people who had fought 
seven years for their own liberty. Hence a portion of them 
took early measures for its abolition. 

It is unnecessary to show the order in which the States 
made provision for the abolition of slavery. But we may 
glance at the manner and time in which slavery advanced or 
receded in the legislation which has marked the progress of 
our State and national politics. 



or THE REBELLION. 



277 



FREE STATES. 

Sq. miles, 

Vermont 10,212 

New Hampshire 9,280 

Massachusetts 7,800 

Maine .31,766 

Rhode Island 1,306 

Connecticut 4,674 

New York 47,000 

New Jersey 8,320 

Pennsylvania 46,000 

Ohio 40,000 

Michigan 56,243 

Illinois 55,409 

Indiana 33,809 

Iowa 50,914 

Wisconsin 54,000 

Oregon 185,000 

California 189,000 

Minnesota 83,531 

Kansas 78,418 



992,692 



Whole area of United States , 
Slave States taken out 



SLAVE STATES. 

Sq. milef. 

Delaware 2,120 

Maryland 9,350 

Virginia 61,352 

North Carolina 50,704 

South Carolina 29,385 

Georgia 58,000 

Alabama 50,722 

Mississippi 47,156 

Louisiana 41,225 

Texas 237,504 

Arkansas 52,198 

Missouri 67,380 

Kentucky 37,680 

Tennessee 45,600 

Florida 59,268 



849,650 



.2,936,160 
. 849,650 



Freedom owns. 



.2,086,510 



Thus we find that the area of freedom and slavery in the 
States recently stood nearly equal. But the process of ex- 
tending slavery over free soil has for some time been effectually 
arrested, and all the rest of our national territory has been 
solemnly and forever dedicated to freedom. 

Slavery has hitherto reposed its chief confidence in ad- 
ducing the specious argument that since the North and the 
South had always, by virtue of the Constitution, held a part- 
nership between slavery and freedom, the area of each should 
be very equally preserved and augmented. Hence the pre- 
cedent had been established, that when one free State was 
to be admitted to the Union, another State should be ad- 
mitted with slavery. 

But the exactions of the slave party at last became so great 
that the free States were compelled to 

24 



shut the gate down" 



278 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

on any further extension of slavery. This issue brought on the 
war. Slavery must rule or ruin. 

Forever afterwards the strife was limited to a single point, 
as I have said before : — slaver y or liberty must fall. 

This issue gave birth at once to the great act of Congress 
which declared that ^Hiereafter no Territory shall be admitted 
to the Union with slavery/' 

This law has been accepted as a federal statute, and is 
being vigorously carried out. 

The new Territories, New 3Iexico, Utah, Nebraslm, 
Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, covering so vast a por- 
tion of the surface of the republic, are consecrated eternally 
to civilization. The black shadow of slavery has not polluted 
and cannot pollute those virgin soils. There labor will forever 
grow proud in the midst of its toil ; for the blighting mildew 
of human servitude will never fall upon those blushing plains 
or their rock-ribbed mountains of silver and gold. 

What now must be the policy which enlightened states- 
manship would dictate for the civil and military government 
of these budding republics ? 

There was some danger that, in the immediate presence of 
stupendous perils pressing upon the eastern side of our empire, 
we might forget the hazards that menaced our western borders. 
That our Territories should not be forgotten is shown by the. 
Indian massacres of Minnesota, and the murder of our citi- 
zens farther west. Other like scenes may occur at any day. 
It is the wrong moment for us to withdraw our protection 
from the scattered families and communities of the Far West. 
They braved every danger that confronts the pioneers who 
become the vanguard of our civilization. They knew how 
strong was the Government they were born under, and they 
did not feel one apprehension that in leaving the peaceful 
scenes of their early manhood's or childhood's home they 
would ever go where the shield of Washington would not still 
defend them. They all felt as adventurous Roman citizens 



OF THE REBELLION. 279 

did when, in the better days of the Empire, they left the 
banks of the Tiber to found colonies on the banks of the 
Thames, the Seine, the Guadalquivir, or the Danube. On the 
last hill-tojD they halted long enough to point out to the eye 
of their children the dome of the Campidoglio, on which they 
might never look again. They knew that, however far thefy 
wandered, they could not go beyond the protection of the 
Roman eagle. And it was only in the days of " the Decline 
and Fall"' that this ceased to be true. Then Rome learned 
that terrible lesson, — that the heart of an empire may go to 
decay, while a distant dependency continues to flourish. 

Let us avoid this danger. Our branches have not yet 
grown too large for the parent tree, nor must the fruit be 
shaken untimely to the ground. We know this is the doom 
which monarchy and its twin-brother despotism have written 
for us in the book of Fate. But our fathers held a better 
faith. They believed that the pen which wrote the doomsday 
book of nations inscribed one page for the successful and 
permanent establishment of liberty and self-government here, 
and its vindication against all domestic and foreign foes. 

We have only just come to the test. The war of Independ- 
ence was only the struggle of infancy to breathe free ; the 
war of 1812, only the assertion of our rights of majority ; the 
w-ar with Mexico, only a brief but brilliant episode in the 
march of our civilization. But now a whirlwind has struck 
the half-grown oak, and it is struggling with the forces of the 
tempest in all directions. Secession is wasting its most ma- 
lignant furies on the tree under whose broad branches it has 
breathed healthful air and beneficent protection. It has in- 
voked to its aid every engine of destruction and every agency 
of malignity; it has hurled the firebrand and poisoned the 
arrows; it has tried to put out our national life; it has tried 
to wind up our history, and turn the fruit of all the heroism 
of our fathers, and the hopes of desponding nations, to ashes. 

In the West and Southwest it has tried to make all the 



280 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Indian tribes as fiendish as itself. Every frontiersman and 
trapper lias been tempted ; every borderer's home is in 
danger to-day unless its master will become a traitor to the 
flag under which he was born. 

There is but one remedy for all this, so far as our distant 
Territories are concerned. Our Governors and Indian Superin- 
tendents must be clothed with full military authority to vin- 
dicate the sovereignty of the Government and the absolute 
supremacy of the flag. They must be to us what the Pro- 
consuls were to Rome. They can (if they are the right men) 
enrol for defence all our loyal citizens within their jurisdic- 
tions. And thus a wall of fire will be put along all our 
western and southwestern borders, which will give to those 
distant inhabitants a blessed feeling of security, and show to 
friends and foes that wherever our eagles fly, their young 
brood are just as safe as they would be if they were nestled 
under the arches of our Capitol. 

The inauguration of this policy of consolidating our na- 
tional system of pure and vigorous civil life throughout the 
whole West has received the best thoughts of the Adminis- 
tration, and a well-considered plan has been adopted and is 
being carried into eff"ect. Freedom and the republic are 
growing stronger every hour. 



OF THE REBELLION. 281 



XLII. 

The Impossibility of the Pinal Division or Partition of the Ame- 
rican Union . 

This Union may seem to be dissolved. But it looks so 
only to the shallow, the doubting, or the untrue. To the 
innumerable host of the thinking, the believing, the loyal, 
and the brave, it stands stronger than ever. It is every day 
growing conscious of its strength. It corrects its mistakes 
as soon as they are detected. It recovers from ad verses as 
fast as they come. It prepares for the future as the moments 

That it is impossible to produce a jjermanent division or 
jpartition of the Union of these States, it is only necessary 
to look at facts. The Union has never been hrokrM. It 
has been threatened, barked at, hawked at, and wounded. 
But, like the national flag, torn and riddled though it may 
be in conflict, and even captured, it is the Stars and Stripes 
still. 

To gain any difficult point, the chief obstacles must first 
be overcome. In order to break up this Union, certain ob- 
structions must be got out of the way. Some of these 
chevaux-de-frise were interposed by the Almighty, who made 
the continent. Some were the work of the founders of the 
Union, who made the Constitution. Some we owe to their 
great and worthy successors, — the immortal post-Picvolutionary 
statesmen, who cast over the Constitution and the Union all 
the light of their genius and patriotism. The first obstacle 
to remove would be the geography of the continent. A 

24* 



282 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

single river alone can and will liold these States together. 
The Mississippi is the eternal sentinel of the Union. Its 
waters spring from the cool fountains of the North, among 
its everlasting fountains of life-giving power. These waters, 
as they flow on through a score of States, mingling with each 
other, carry the language of empire with them, saying, 
" This river is national ) it helongs to the lohole country ! God 
made it !" 

The complete exemplification of this fact and sentiment is 
so clearly stated in the note* below that I need not say any 

* In the "National Intelligencer'' for April 2, 1862, this whole geographi- 
cal question is treated with a calm and dispassionate judgment which for 
half a century has distinguished that pre-eminently national and historic 
journal. It says : — 

" We do but reproduce geographical data, often cited by others, 
and familiar to every intelligent American reader (but the bearings 
of which do not seem to be sufficiently understood abroad), when 
we say that whoever looks at a map of the United States will observe 
that the State of Louisiana lies on both sides qf the Mississippi River, 
and that the States of Arkansas and Mississippi lie on the right 
and left banks of this great stream, eight hundred miles of whose lower 
course is thus controlled by these three States, unitedly inhabited by 
hardly as many white people as inhabit the city of New York. If we 
observe, then, the country drained by this river and its affluents, com- 
mencing with Missouri on its west bank and Kentucky on its east bank, 
we find that it includes nine or ten powerful States, large portions of three 
or four others, and several large Territories, — in all a country as large as 
Europe, as fine as any under the sun, already holding many more people 
than all the revolted States, and destined to be one of the most populous 
and powerful regions of the earth. Does any one suppose that these 
powerful States — this great and energetic population — will ever 'consent' 
to a peace that shall put the lower course of this single and mighty 
national outlet to the sea in the hands of a foreign Government far weaker 
than themselves? If there is any such person, he knows little of the past 
history of mankind, and will need to be reminded that the people of Ken- 
tucky alone, before they were constituted a State, gave formal notice to 
the Federal Government, when General Washington was President, that 
if the United States did not acquire Louisiana they would themselves 
conquer it. In the words of a distinguished citizen of that martial State, 
'the mouths of the Mississippi belong, by the gift of God, to the inhabit- 



or THE REBELLION. 283 

thing further on this pohit. Whatever argument is presented 
by William H. Collins, Esq., of Baltimore, will be gladly 
listened to by any right-minded American, 

ants of its great valley. Nothing but irresistible force can disinherit 
them.' 

*'If such is the interdependence of the country lying in the valley of 
the Mississippi that it must ever remain subject to one Government and 
share in one destiny, it remains to say that it seems equally impossible to 
draw a line of separation on the Atlantic slope east of the Alleghany 
Mountains and south of the Potomac. The geographical considerations 
"which govern the decision of this question have been so clearly stated by 
an intelligent citizen of Maryland that we have but to recite them for the 
purposes of this argument. We quote from an able pamphlet addressed 
to the people of Maryland by William H. Collins, Esq., of Baltimore : — 

"'If a line of separation is to be drawn on the Atlantic slant, where 
shall it run? The Chesapeake Bay and the streams emptying into it, 
together with the lands which they pierce and fertilize, will, for reasons 
stronger than human power, remain with the northern part of our country. 
If I read the map aright, Nature has so willed it. 

" 'It is deemed conclusive that, in the event of a separation, the northern 
part of the country will be the maritime Power. He who doubts this 
would scarcely be trusted by the strong common sense of the American 
people. If any thing in the future can be foretold, this would seem to 
be certain. Let the men of business, the thinkers, the statesmen, of our 
country, ponder this proposition well. Much depends on it. 

"'Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake lies the Hamp- 
ton Roads, one of the noblest harbors of the world. Large enough to 
float in security the navies of the earth, its mouth is narrow, though of 
easy access. Fortress Monroe completely giiards its entrance, and renders 
the harbor safe in war from an eaemy. To the maritime power of our 
country that harbor, as a refuge from the tempest or the enemy, is of 
untold value. From the port of New York, and alung the southern coast 
around the peninsula of Florida, no such harbor exists for the thousands 
of Northern ships engaged in commerce with the Gulf of Mexico, or with 
South America, or around Capo Horn, or with the West Indies. In peace 
and in war. Fortress Monroe is to the northern part of our country more 
precious than Gibraltar is to England. When England agrees to give up 
Gibraltar, then, and not till then, will the United States agree to surren- 
der Fortress Monroe and the Hampton Roads. 

"'But the possession of the Hampton Roads involves absolute control 
over the commerce of Norfolk and Portsmouth, as also of the James River, 
which empties into those roads south of Fortress Monroe. Will Virginia 



284 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Such is the decree of Grod as we read it in geography. It 
speaks from his own great emblems of power, — from his own 
visible creation. 

ever agree that the great harbor at the mouth of her noblest river, cora- 
manding the commerce of Richmond and Petersburg, as also of her great 
commercial emporium, Norfolk, shall belong to a foreign Power ? She 
cannot. She will not. It would be her utter ruin. Will the North ever 
agree to part with this noble harbor, so necessary to her commerce, and 
with the fortress which commands it ? Never! Never! 

"'The question, then, is, Can Virginia, with the aid of her Southern 
allies, take Fortress Monroe ? If the South had a navy stronger than that 
of the North, she might take it. But so long as the North is the maritime 
Power, I suppose this fortress to be impregnable. Its garrison, if need 
be, can be relieved by fresh troops daily, its sick and wounded removed, 
its wants supplied even to the most minute, without any possible inter- 
ference by any troops on the land. I say nothing of the Rip Raps; 
though that fort, if finished, as it easily can be, would add greatly to the 
command of the harbor, as also to the security of Fortress Monroe. 

'•' * Here, then, is the state of the question. Virginia must have the con- 
trol of the mouth of the Hampton Roads. It is indispensable to her. 
Under our Union, it has been guarded and defended by the General 
Government, for the uses of Virginia, as also of all the States of the 
Union. The North cannot part with it. Virginia cannot part with it. 
The result is of necessity. Virginia and the Northern States must belong 
to one Government, as they have done from the early colonial days. 

" ' I have spoken of the Hampton Roads as they concern the country at 
large, and the State of Virginia in particular. As a citizen of Maryland, 
I have also a word to say. The State of Maryland, and especially the 
city of Baltimore, has an interest in the Hampton Roads scarcely inferior 
to the State of Virginia herself. It is our outlying harbor on our way to 
and from the sea. Its sheltering bosom floats annually millions of our 
commerce and thousands of our sailors. Maryland can never agree, 
under any circumstances, that her right to use this harbor shall depend 
on any other tenure than its ownership by the country to which she be- 
longs. The right to use this harbor in peace and war is one of the noble 
blessings conferred by the Union on the State of Maryland. This right 
she can never surrender.' 

" The proposed line of separation, then, must run south of Maryland 
and Virginia. Can any one, with a map of the United States before him, 
draw any such line so as to meet the requirements of a possible political 
geography, and at the same time leave south of that line a territory and 
population sufficient to maintain and defend an independent Government 



OF THE REBELLION. 285 

Second. An insurmountable barrier to the fiend of dis- 
union exists in a communiti/ of commerce ^ social and home 
relations, luith cdl their fireside souvenirs, and A common 
LANGUAGE.* 

against the will and interests of the United States ? Can the ' cotton ' 
States' hope to form a confederacy which shall defy the Constitution and 
laws of the Union ? The desperate expedient of civil war, by which the 
political leaders in these States sought to embroil the border slaveholding 
States in their struggle, in order to consolidate their power, sufficiently 
proclaimed the consciousness of their inability to erect a Government on 
such a narrow basis, 

I *' It seems, then, to result from a comprehensive view of the geographical 
relations of the territory embraced in the Union, that a permanent sepa- 
ration of these States is a physical impossibility. At least this * impossi- 
bility' deserves to be more thoughtfully weighed than it seems to have 
hitherto been by such European statesmen as have been most impressed 
by the conceived * impossibility' of ^subjugating' the insurgents." 

* Noah Webster has had more to do with the perpetuation of the Union 
than any other man. His dictionary is, without question, the best lexi- 
con of the English language ever made; and there is every reason to 
suppose that it will hereafter constitute the chief authority for that 
tongue wherever it is known throughout the world. The name of its 
author is already regarded with veneration by the scholars of Europe, 
while it is uttered with reverence in every district school-house on this 
continent. As it appears from Merriam's press, it will stand for the 
future : no considerable changes will be likely to be made in it for cen- 
turies to come. New scholars may make new discoveries, and future in- 
vestigations will reward their toil in the progressive science of language; 
but no accident or change, no future studies or discoveries, will be likely 
to affect the fortunes of this book. Other lexicographers, starting in 
early life, with the fruit of Webster's enormous labors in their hands, 
may become illustrious in different departments of this illimitable science; 
but the fame of their great leader will outlive them all. There may and 
there will be, perhaps, as great statesmen in future times to serve the 
country as Jefferson, Hamilton, and their colleagues, and in some coming 
national trial men may be found who will fill responsible trusts as faith- 
fully as our first President. But thoir fame will grow dim when their 
contemporaries are dead, while the names of Washington and his com- 
panions will grow brighter with the progress of ages. It seems to be 
one of the laws of Providence that the founders of nations shall never 
divide their glory with those who come after them. Moses and Lycurgus, 



286 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

From the best facts I can draw from the various censuses i 
of the United States since 1790, I come to the conclusion 
that very few famiUes exist in the South into which some 
Northern blood has not been infused by marriage. It is not 
a clearly-determined fact, but it is fair to suppose, that this 

Romulus and Alfred, have left none to dispute their fame. Of such men 
history will tolerate no rivals. It is nearly as well-established a law with 
the founders and fathers of learning. The name of Cadmus inspires as 
much veneration in the Greek scholar to-day as it did in the bosom of 
Plato, and it will be dear to the scholars of all coming time. No future 
dramatic poet will ever, even in his hours of madness, dream of usurping 
the throne of Shakspeare; no future astronomer will lay his profaning 
hand on the crown of blind Galileo j a second ''Paradise Lost" has never 
been written; the world never will look for another "Iliad;" Gibbon has 
made a second "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" impossible; 
Blackstone will be authority on the bench while society holds together; 
another " Genie du Christianisme" will never be called for; Edwards has 
written his Essay on the Will, Cooper revised his " Leather-Stocking 
Tales'* for the far future ; Halleck has done for his " Ode to Marco Boz- 
zaris" what Gray did to his Elegy ; Webster is dead, and the last orna- 
ment has been added to his colossal system by the hand of the great 
builder. There are many provinces in the illimitable field of empire, but 
the mightiest of all is in the intellectual world. He who controls the 
thoughts of men is their real master. If this be true in a general sense, 
it becomes doubly so in a special one. The maker of words is master of 
the thinker, who only uses them. Here is the field of the lexicographer. 
In this domain he reigns supreme. He stands at the fountain-head of 
thought, science, and civilization. He is controller of all minds; to him 
all beings who talk, think, write, or print, pay ceaseless, involuntary, 
eternal tribute. In this sense, Webster is the all-shaping, all-controlling 
mind and guide of this hemisphere. But he is so in a still more special 
sense. He grew up with the nation, he was coevel with its early intel- 
lectual origin, and he will perpetuate himself with its most distant pro- 
gress. Not a man has grown out of our soil who has not drank at this 
parent spring. There is not a man on the continent on whom Webster 
has not laid his all-forming hand. His principles of language have shaped 
every word that is now, or ever will be, uttered, here or elsewhere, by an 
American tongue. His genius has presided over every scene in the nation. 
It is universal, omnipresent. No man can breathe the air of the hemi- 
sphere and escape it. And the sceptre he wields so unquestionably has 
been worthily won. It was not inherited, it was achieved; it cost a 



OF THE REBELLION. 287 

process of intermingling has been going on so long that from 
it all will be evolved a nationality which will, in spite of 

struggle of more than half a century, — the struggle of a strong, clear 
head, an honest, brave, untiring heart. No propitious accidents favored 
his progress; no decisive casualties awarded the goal. The victory was 
gained after a steady trial of sixty years. 

Look at a few of the indices of his progress ; for in the advancement of 
mind there are certain reliable signs. Science, as well as machinery, 
measures its revolutions. After the wheels of our new ocean-steamers 
have made a million of revolutions, the hand of the dial marks one. It 
was so with Bacon, Galileo, and Franklin : their books marked their pro- 
gress through the unexplored ocean of learning. It was so with Webster. 

America, then, the only free and, in the future, the inevitably great 
nation of the earth, was just beginning her career; and Webster became 
her schoolmaster. There had never been a great or powerful country 
with a common, a universal language, without dialects, a unity in idiom 
and pronunciation. In our own times we have striking illustrations of 
this. The Yorkshireman cannot talk with the man from Cornwall. The 
peasant of the Ligurian Apennines drives his goats home at evening over 
hills that look down on six provinces, neither of whose dialects he can 
speak or comprehend. The European Malle-Poste, in a day's drive, takes 
the traveller where he hears a score of dialects. 

This is the only country which has but one language. Three thousand 
miles change not the pronunciation of a word nor the orthography of a 
letter. These nearly forty republics are without a dialect or an idiom. 
Everywhere, from the forests of Maine to the glowing savannahs of the 
Great Gulf, and far to the Pacific coast, there are a hundred races, but 
there is only one language. Around every fireside, at every desk, and 
from every tribune, in every field of labor and every factory of toil, is 
heard the same tongue. To AVebster, more than to any or all other causes, 
this nation owes its unity of language. He has been to us greater than 
Alfred was to England. He has done for America what Cadmus did for 
Greece. 

In 17S3, Mr. Webster published his first part of a grammatical institute 
of the English language, — in other words, his "English Spelling-Book." 
More than fifty million copies of this work have been used in this country. 
During the long period he was maturing the dictionary, his entire revenue 
was derived from the profits of the Spelling-Book, at a premium for copy- 
right of less than a cent a copj-. It has been the guide of axevy American: 
— more than a million of copies were sold last year. 

His herculean labors had begun. This little book, which is manufac- 
tured for three cents, and costs the Oregon farmer twelve and a half for his 



288 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

every thing, result in a national sentiment. The national 
sentiment springing from this source will, in any event, be- 
come too mighty to be resisted. If it be interrupted for a 
time by the din of war or the clamor of sectionalism, it will 
assert its rights to be heard at the bar of justice and before 
the jury of the world. 

Not less than a quarter of a million of marriages between 
the men and women of the North and the South have been 
sanctified and ratified since Washington died. Besides, our 
citizens from every State have had and held confidential or 
open commercial communications with their friends in and 
through all the other States. So that we find a web and woof 
of commercial relations embracing and enfolding the great 
majority of our Northern and Southern people. Life on the 
one side is life on the other. So it is with death. 

Woman ! her great and all-controlling power is omnipo- 
tent here. Wherever this gentle and gifted Caucasian 
angel dwells, she instinctively clings to the sacred altars of 
home. In her supreme devotion to those she loves, reason 



boy, ended with the work we are now speaking of, which glitters through 
the plate-glass doors of the library of the Queen of England, and which 
always lay open on the table of Hallam, the patriarch of history and the 
chieftain of British literature. We know of no man now living or 
who fxourished in the last age, with whom he can be compared. He was 
a far more learned lexicographer than Johnson, and his dictionary has 
superseded his altogether. His fame is settled on an eternal foundation : 
he enters into the every-day thoughts of millions of men. He has edu- 
cated thirty million living men, — not one of whom can ever forget his 
teacher, — each of whom, in his wanderings through the world, goes as the 
herald of his master, thus diffusing his fame around the globe and mul- 
tiplying the army of thinkers and speakers who are to transmit it from 
age to age. Only two other men have stood on the soil of the New World 
who are so sure of immortality, — its discoverer, Columbus, and its savior, 
Washington. Webster is its great and perpetual Teacher; and the three 
make up our trinity of fame. All careful readers of history know that 
nations speaking a common language are not long divided by political 
events. 



OF THE REBELLION, 289 

has no place; it is love; and love blots out argument. It 
will die before it will argue. How, then, can Southern women 
be expected to divorce themselves from all they have to live 
for on earth ? Even if they wear ^^ the white, red, and blue" 
in their very hearts, must they not flutter the kerchief when 
the ^^rattlesnake flag'^ floats by? Then who can count the 
disappointments and troubles of so many homes, where hearts 
are half or whole broken, and all the blessed hopes that fed 
youthful visions withered, dead ? All these elements of 
union have existed before; and, although these heart-strings 
may now seem to be paralyzed, they will again wake to the 
touch of friendship and tremble with the passions of love. 

Commerce makes her own rules. She regulates all the 
oceans ; she digs all the canals ; she builds all the ships ; 
she is the handmaid of human want and human luxury. She 
is already impatient to unfold her dove-wings for a new flight 
when this deluge is passed. 

Again : before we destroy this Union we must overcome 
still another obstacle. We must enter every house and home 
and heart in America, and tear away the images of Washing- 
ton, Jackson, Webster, Clay, and all their heroic peers. 

No American believes this can be done. The traitor is not 
born who can rail at these names. They have passed into 
history. They belong to the world now, — not to America 
alone. They have been solemnly transferred to humanity, — 
that great keeper of all earth's hopes and treasures. There 
they are safe. 

What said Jackson in December (10), 1832, when by one 
bold act he sent Nullification howling back to its South Caro- 
lina home ? 

In closing that memorable proclamation, he thus speaks: — 

^^ Fellow-Citizens : — The momentous case is before you. 

On your undivided support of your Government depends the 

decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred 

25 



290 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

Union will be preserved^ and the blessings it secures to us as 
one people sball be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the 
unanimity with which that decision will be expressed will be 
such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, 
and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it 
will bring to their defence will transmit them unimpaired and 
invigorated to our children. 

^^ May the great Ruler of nations grant that the signal bless- 
ings with which he has favored ours may not, by the mad- 
ness of party or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost; 
and may his wise providence bring those who have produced 
this crisis to see their folly before they feel the misery of civil 
strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that Union 
which, if we may dare to penetrate his designs, he has chosen 
as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which 
we may reasonably aspire. 

^' In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United 
States to be hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my 
hand. 

''Done at the city of Washington, this 10th day of Decem- 
ber, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
thirty-two, and of the independence of the United States the 
fifty-seventh. Andrew Jackson." 

What was the language Webster held at the same crisis, 
and on the most august occasion the Senate-Chamber had 
ever witnessed? 

Familiar as these wonderful words may be to many readers, 
I cannot let these sheets leave my pen till I inscribe them 
here ', and the man who does not respect me the more for 
doing it may have what comfort he can in loving his country 
less heartily than I do. 

In reply to Senator Hayue, of South Carolina, Webster 

id- 

*' I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 



OF THE REBELLION. 291 

in view tlie prosperity and honor of tlio wliole country and 
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union 
we owe our safety at home and our consideration and dignity 
abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for 
whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union 
we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe 
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of 
disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. 
Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately 
awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of 
life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs 
of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has 
stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread 
further and further, they have not outrun its protection or 
its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of 
national, social, and personal happiness. 

'^ I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, 
to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I 
have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty 
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the 
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I 
can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard 
him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Grovernment 
whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not 
how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable 
might be the condition of the people when it shall be 
broken up and destroyed. 

" While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us for us and our children. Be- 
yond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that 
in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that 
on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When 
my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun 
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dis- 



292 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

honored fragments of a once glorious Union, on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent, on a land rent with civil 
feuds or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their 
last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous 
ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout 
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or pol- 
luted, nor a single star obscured, — bearing for its motto no 
such miserable interrogatory as, ' What is all this woxth V nor 
those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first, and 
union afterwards;' but everywhere, spread all over in cha- 
racters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they 
float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under 
the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true 
American heart, ' Liberty and union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable !' ^' 

The spirit of sectionalism was rebuked ; Nullification 
hung its head; the majesty of the Constitution was asserted. 
The glorious Union of these States became a new source of 
pride and exultation, and ever afterwards Daniel Webster was 
called The Defender of the Constitution. 

But, foiled, defeated, and rebuked as the spirit of Nullifi- 
cation was, the leaders of that party had succeeded in gaining 
a majority in South Carolina; and a convention was held at 
Columbia, which declared that Congress, in laying protective 
duties, had exceeded its just powers, and that its acts from 
that period should be regarded as utterly null and void, — that 
after February 1, 1833, the validity of that national statute 
should be denied by the courts of the State, and that every 
man in that Commonwealth who held an ofiice should take 
an oath to disregard it. And, finally, the convention declared 
that if any attempts were made by the National Government 
to enforce obedience to its statutes, they should be repelled, 
and from that time "the State of South Carolina would throw 
oiT all allegiance whatever to the Federal Constitution, and 



OF THE REBELLION. 293 

assert and maintain her independence as a sovereign and in- 
dependent State/' The convention also put forth an address 
to the people of the United States, avowing the doctrines of 
Nullification, and calling upon all other Southern States to 
join with her in "a dissolution of the Union/' 

On the 27th of the following November, the Legisla- 
ture of South Carolina met at Columbia. The Governor, 
in his message, approved of what the convention had 
done. He recommended the Legislature to request the Pre- 
sident of the United States to withdraw the military forces 
of the Federal Government from the arsenal at Charleston, 
that the militia should be organized, that the services of 
twelve thousand volunteers should be accepted, and that ap- 
propriations should be made for carrying on a war with the 
United States. 

It was fortunate for this republic that General Jackson 
then stood at the helm. Regardless of every consideration 
except those pure and lofty motives which sway the action of 
great and patriotic minds, he decided at once upon his 
course. He determined to crush the " Monster of Disunion ;" 
and on the 10th of December, but a few days after the mes- 
sage of the Governor of South Carolina had been received, 
he published his memorable proclamation. 

25» 



294 THE LIGHT AND DARK 



XLIII. 

Tlie Grreat Eepublic still moves on in the Oonscionsness of its 
own Security. 

There is no better way to test the integrity and power of a 
man or a commonwealth than to watch them in periods of 
trouble.* At those times only does true character come out. 



••• In the excitements of a great civil war and the struggle for national 
existence, our Government still shows a sublime faith in its perpetuity, 
and perfects its plans for the agricultural progress of the nation. The 
sword and the ploughshare, the spear and the praning-hook, have worked 
together upon the problem of civil liberty. 

No appeal has been made by the Government for the planting of extra 
crops to supply its soldiers in the field, or to gain by exchanges with foreign 
nations the means of carrying on the war. The Government has looked 
calmly and confidently to the future. This faith has been strikingly mani- 
fested in the organization of the Department of Agriculture during the 
darkest period of the war, and in appropriations for carrying it on, small, to 
be sure, compared with the magnitude of the interest, but increased from 
$60,000 (usually given to the Agricultural Division of the Patent Office) 
to $105,000 for the enlarged opei'ations of the Department. No longer an 
appendage to a mere bureau, it has assumed the full dignity of a Depart- 
ment, and its establishment constitutes, on the part of our national legis- 
lators, a graceful recognition of the importance of af/rienltnre, the first 
and most extended of our national labors. Its object is, to get and diflFuse 
practical information upon agriculture; to perfect and put in operation a 
reliable system of statistics; to procure, propagate, and disseminate new 
and promising varieties of seeds and plants; to experiment in the acclimat- 
izing of exotics of probable value to our rural industry ; and to maintain 
a watchful guardianship over the interests of agriculture. 

Nor is this the only benefit to the tillers of the soil, who furnish the 
sinews of war. The same Congress, in the same session, passed an act 
donating public lands to the several States and Territories, which provides 



OF THE REBELLION. 295 

In this respect the order of nature seems to be reversed. The 
darkness of misfortune lights up the object, while the full 
noonday conceals it. 

Neither men nor nations ever develop their native charac- 
teristics in times of florid prosperity. It is only when the 
storm comes that the individual, the oak, the ship, or the 
community show their real strength. Then there is and can be 
no concealment of weakness or defects. It seems to be a law 
of nature that every thing must pass through the crucible 
before its qualities can be determined. There is a Miot for 
Grovernments as well as for the precious metals. Governments 
pass through this Mint in civil revolutions, which either save 
or destroy them. What, then, is the surest test to apply to 
nations while they are going through foreign or civil wars ? 
I would answer, Hoio strong is their consciousness of security/, 
and how do they prove- it? By prosecuting their public 
works as in times of peace ! 

for colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. It givea 
thirty thousand acres of land for every Representative and Senator in 
Congress, or more than ten millions of acres in all, for the establishment 
of an Agricultural College in each, State which may accept the generous 
provision. 

This initial step in aid of practical education is not the work of an old 
Government. 

Thirty-five years ago, the annual average of our agricultural exports 
was fifty million dollars ; when the war of the rebellion broke out, these 
exports were increased to nearly three hundred millions ; and the astonish- 
ing fact is now manifested that, while the ports of the South are closed, 
and a million of laborers are withdrawn from the North, a vastly larger 
export has since been made of the products of loyal agriculture than ever 
before. The following exhibit of exports is illustrative of this remarkable 
increase : — 

1860. 1861. 1862. 

Indian Corn $2,399,808 $6,890,865 $10,387,38.3 

Wheat 4,076,704 .38,313,624 42,573,295 

Flour 15,448,507 24,615,849 27,534,677 



$21,925,019 $69.850.3.38 $80,495,355 



296 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

This rule we learn from all the great nations of antiquity. 
The public edifices of the Asiatic empires, those of Egypt, 
Greece, and Kome, went on uninterrupted, their enduring 
structures were uninterrupted, in the midst of all their foreign 
wars and home convulsions. 

It has been so with great modern nations. The Escurial 
of Madrid, St. Peter's at Rome, St. Paul's at London, the 
Duomo at Milan, the palaces of Paris, the wonderful edifices 
of Russia, — all were founded, carried on, and completed in the 
midst of constant convulsions at home and abroad ; and yet 
all these nations have either filled the full measure of civic 
greatness, or are now in the meridian of their power. 

What corresponding signs do we discover in the United 
States during this terrible rebellion ? Eceri/ sign of con- 
scious strength.'^ No public work has been suspended, except 

^ On the 22d of April, 1863, in the chapel of the University of the City of 
New York, Hon. and General Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts (Chairman 
of the Military Committee of the Senate of the United States), who has 
procured the passage of the act incorporating a National Academy of 
Sciences, said, — 

" Gentlemen : — I hold in my hand the Act, passed in the closing hours 
of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, 'To incorporate the National Academy of 
Sciences.' In compliance with many kind requests, I am here to call the 
corporators to order. In rising to perform this agreeable task, I crave for 
a moment your indulgence. 

" This Act, under which you have met to organize, incorporates in 
America, and for America, a national institution, whose objects, ranging 
over the illimitable fields of science, are limited only by the wondrous 
capacities of the human intellect. Such an institution has been for years 
in the thought and on the tongue of the devotees of science ; but its 
attainment seemed far in the future. Now it is an achieved fact. Our 
country has spoken it into being in this ' dark and troubled night' of its 
history, and commissioned you, gentlemen, to mould and fashion its 
organization, to infuse into it that vital and animating spirit that shall 
win in the boundless domains of science the glittering prizes of achieve- 
ment that will gleam forever upon the brow of the nation. 

"When, a few months ago, a gentleman whose name is known and 
honored in both hemispheres expressed to me the desire that an academy of 
physical sciences should be founded in America, and that I would at least 



OF THE REBELLION. 297 

from the exhaustion of appropriations through the villany 
or prodigality of that Administration which, through treason 
or imbecility, ushered in the rebellion. 

On Mr. Lincoln's accession, the necessity of resuming 
these labors received early attention, and, the means being at 
once provided, they all went on. Among them were the 
Capitol, the Treasury Building, the Aqueduct, and other 
works of vast public utility, all of which were continued, 
and are going on now, day by day, with the steadiness of sun- 
make the effort to obtain such an act of incorporation for the scientific 
men of the United States, I replied that it would seem more fitting that 
some statesman of ripe scholarship should take the lead in securing such a 
measure, but that I felt confident that I could prepare, introduce, and 
carry through Congress a measure so eminently calculated to advance the 
cause of science and to reflect honor upon our country. I promptly 
assumed the responsibility, and, with such aid and suggestions as I could 
obtain, I prepared, introduced, and by personal effort with members of 
both Houses of Congress, carried through this Act of Incorporation, 
without even a division in either House. 

" The suggestion was sometimes made that the nation is engaged in a 
fearful struggle for existence, and that the moment was not well chosen 
for such a measure. But I thought otherwise. I thought it just the 
fitting time to act. I wanted the savans of the Old "World, as they turn 
their eyes hitherward, to see that, amid the fire and blood of the most 
gigantic civil war in the annals of nations, the statesmen and people of 
the United States, in the calm confidence of assured power, are fostering 
the elevating, purifying, and consolidating institutions of religion and 
benevolence, literature, art, and science. I wanted the men of Europe, 
who profess to see in America the failure of republican institutions, 
to realize that the people of the United States, while eliminating from 
their system that ever-disturbing element of discord beeiueathed to them 
by the colonial and commercial policy of England, are cherishing institu- 
tions that elevate man and ennoble nations. The land resounds with the 
tread of armies, its bright waters are crimsoned and its fields reddened 
with fraternal blood. 

"Patriotism surely demands that we strive to make this now discordant, 
torn, and bleeding nation one and indivisible. This National Academy 
of Sciences will, I feel sure, be now and hereafter another element of 
power to keep in their orbits, around the great central sun of the Union, 
this constellation of sovereign commonwealths." 



298 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

rising. The matter will admit of some illustrations of the 
philosophy of the subject. 

None but a few timid people have ever been afraid of this 
rebellion. Every just and good man has wept over it in 
bitter sorrow. But it has inspired no deep or lasting alarm 
among men of firmness, patriotism, and common sense. The 
calmness of the surface of our public and private life has 
been disturbed, but the deep fountain has still been send- 
ing forth unceasingly its crystal waters, speaking the lan- 
guage of the heart of the nation, which proclaims its unbroken 
faith in the eternity of the Kepublic. 

The country came up to a level with its institutions, — to a 
kvel with its great historic acts. For some time our institu- 
tions had been sujjerior to the acts of the people and their 
Administrations ; but the all-engrossing cares and selfish in- 
terests of life had left the fortunes of the United States at 
the mercy of intriguing politicians. 

But when the alarm-bell sounded, all true men sprung to 
their feet, and came to the rescue. Even Indians fight for 
our Grovernment.* 

^ ^ :^ iit :^ ^ 

* While the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon are engaged in a heinous 
rebellion against a Government which stands a monument of human 
liberty and civilization, what a beautiful and undying tribute to that 
Oovernment, and an endearing and imperishable memento of the fidelity 
of the sons of nature, — the red man, — is the page of history recorded 
below ! Driven from his native hunting-grounds, to which he held an 
indisputable birthright, and compelled to seek new fields and new games, 
hunted and persecuted by the white man, cheated by false promises, his 
brain maddened and blood poisoned by the "fire-water," and almost 
beggared, depending upon the scanty allowance afforded by his tres- 
passers, still his Indian instinct is not dead to his allegiance, and he now 
girds on the armor of the warrior and sheds his life-blood in defence of 
the Constitution and Government. 

For some months preceding active hostilities between the North and the 
South, the loyal and true Cherokee and Creek Indians — appreciating the 
danger that was menacing our free institutions, which, while it had de- 
prived them of their hunting-grounds, had placed in their hands the 



i 

II 



OF THE REBELLION, 299 

The spring mornings in "Washington are as fine as they are 
in Italy, — finer, if possible. The other morning (June 3, 

appliances of more civilized modes of living, particularly in the culture 
of the ground — formed secret Union societies, for the purpose of strengthen- 
ing the bonds of union in their midst and rendering efficient service to 
the Government. These Spartan bands held private meetings, in order the 
more effectually to mislead the rebel commissioners, then in their midst, 
from Georgia. Each member wore in the lappel of his coat a common 
pin, ingeniously inserted in such a manner as not to be mistaken ; and so 
well was their secret kept that even those who had noticed the badge were 
induced to believe that it was a tribal insignia, and they were consequently 
given the sobriquet of "Pin Indians." In the early part of 1862, General 
Ben McCulloch completely surrounded their nation with a force of some 
fifteen thousand rebels, and endeavored by every art to enlist them in the 
Southern cause. But, while manfully spurning their bribes and scorning 
their threats, though temporarily restrained from espousing the cause of 
the Union, the disastrous defeat of the rebel McCulloch at Pea Ridge freed 
them from the restraint, and enlistments were immediately commenced, 
which resulted in raising a regiment of loyal Indians in a few days, and 
two more regiments in some six weeks, — the first composed of Creeks, and 
the two last of Cherokees. They were immediately placed under com- 
mand of General Blunt ; and their first engagement was at a point about 
eight miles east of Port Gibson, in which Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, a rebel 
Cherokee, and one hundred others were killed, twenty-seven prisoners 
taken, and the rest routed. After this followed the battles of Newtonia, Mo., 
Maysville, Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Van Buren, and Fort Davis, Arkan- 
sas, in all of which their prowess as soldiers was not only displayed, — 
crowning our arms with success, — but a singularly high degree of human- 
ity and civilization, which renders them peculiarly prominent, when com- 
pared with the Indians in the rebel service, for their Christian advance- 
ment, and from which, we regret to say, some of our own soldiers might 
draw a profitable lesson. 

Nor did this beautiful devotion arise from any mercenary motives. 
On the contrary, they were surrounded on all sides by the rebels, as also 
hostile tribes, and to have thrown themselves against the Union would 
have been a great advantage pecuniarily. In fact, their great temporary 
interest was with the rebellion ; and only the loftiest promptings of duty, 
and an enlarged Christianized idea of the old Union and its mission in 
the benefits resulting from its preservation to the Old as well as the 
New World, could have impelled these noble sons of nature to pursue the 
course they did. And, although their homes have been desolated, a 
grateful nation will not withhold its reward. 



SOO THE LIGHT AND DARK 

1863), just as the languislimg foliage, all covered with dust 
and wilting with heat, seemed to be doomed to another day 
of drought, a glorious shower came up and baptized the 
whole scenery of Washington and its environs with the dis- 
tilled waters of heaven. 

Every living thing rejoiced. The birds began to twitter 
from every tree, and just before sunrise their choral anthem 
was warbled up into the deep-blue sky. 

The scene from the east steps of the Capitol was beautiful 
beyond description, and strange as it was beautiful. 

The contrast was grander than art and historic associa- 
tions alone could make ; for it grouped into one picture all 
that art, history, and nature can cluster. 

Above rose the gorgeous Capitol, crowned with its superb 
dome, slowly but securely rising to its completion, — the finest 
if not the largest dome yet swung in the heavens by the hand 
of man. 

Opposite, in the Capitol Park, stood, in pure bronze, the 
sublime statue of the Groddess of Liberty, solemnly contem- 
plating the great Temple of Freedom erected to her honor. 
The calmness of her look and the serenity of her attitude 
bespoke consciousness of security for the approaching triumph 
of the Republic and its worshippers. 

Just beyond sat Washington, in G-reenough's marble, sur- 
rounded by all the symbols of patriotism and statesmanship. 

Still farther on, nearly hidden by the glistening foliage, stood 
the old Capitol, — once occupied by sages, now crowded with 
traitors. 

Contrast all this with any scene at the South, where the 
arts of peace are going to decay, that the infernal art of war 
may work its desolations ! 

At no one moment since the insurrection began has any 
act of the Grovernment in any of its departments displayed 
the least consciousness of weakness or danger. It did not in 
the beginning foresee how vast the outbreak would grow to 



I 



OF THE REBELLION. SOI 

be, nor did anybody else. But it has marclied with the 
rebellion and shown itself fully competent to suppress it. 

With this object in view, Congress displayed no hesitation 
in clothing the President with all the authority he needed to 
meet the great emergency; and although, as events have 
since proved, broader and sterner measures could advanta- 
geously have been adopted, yet it is exceedingly doubtful if 
Congress or the people would readily have acquiesced in the 
raising of more men or more money at the time. It required 
new developments to prepare the nation for the unparalleled 
expenditures and legislation which were afterwards adopted 
with unanimity and hailed with applause. But in no act of 
Congress or the people has any sign of weakness or hesitation 
been shown. 

With officers in the civil and military service the case has 
certainly been far different; for blunders without number, 
cowardice in the face of the enemy, secret treason, and foul 
intrigue have been far more formidable obstacles to the vigor- 
ous prosecution of the war than all the ferocious hordes of 
the armed rebellion, with the acknowledged courage of the 
rank and file and the admirable military genius of their des- 
perate leaders. Before such fearful elements of discomfiture 
and trouble, all the mystery of the protraction of the war 
and of many of its repeated reverses melts away. 

This, however, by no means argues any conscious weakness 
on the part of the Administration, or the people, or the cause ; 
nor does it lessen the certainty of final success. It only 
causes delay. But this delay brings with it incalculable sacri- 
fices of life, happiness, and treasure, — a terrible holocaust, in- 
deed, to be offered up on the altar of incapacity, cowardice, 
intrigue, and treason. 

How unlike all this among mere politicians* and place- 

■* Any attempt at compromise with rebels in arms would sound the 
tocsin of revolution. There is no danger that Mr. Lincoln will attempt it. 
There is no evidence that he has ever thought of it since the rebellion be- 

26 



302 THE LIGHT AND DARK 

seekers, to the higher and better spirit of the masses of our 
people, who have no aspirations in politics except for the 
safety, the honor, and the endurance of the Republic ! 

On more than one occasion since the first battle of Bull Run 
have I stood on the Capitol, or the Treasury building, listen- 

gan. If lie should hesitate, he is lost. If the politicians should vote it 
down, the army loill carry it through. The army have made the sacrifice, 
— ^not the politicians ; and they will have their reward. A million bayonets 
are lifted, and those who carry them have sworn vengeance for the blood 
of their brothers unrighteously shed. It cometh up from the ground ! 

Politicians, beware, and do not provoke the wrath of that patriotic host ; 
for if they turn to wreak their vengeance on you, not a copperhead will 
be left above ground. You have heard some mutterings of half-suppressed 
indignation — some notes of warning — from the army. You can intrigue 
in secret conclaves, bully in lobbies, corrupt the press, buy votes in ale- 
houses, and live in luxury while the army is bleeding ! But that army 
will be on your track. Secession and rebellion at the North, as at the 
South, must die. 

The citizens of all the free and border States now in the army have 
spoken on this subject. Appended are two, selected from the proceedings 
of regiments and bi'igades : — 

" They tell us, as they did at the outset, ' You are knaves and cowards, — 
mudsills; and five of you are not equal to one of us in battle;' and, in 
their incomprehensible arrogance and self-conceit, they still expect to beat 
the reveille and have roll-call at the base of Bunker Hill Monument ! 

" Under these circumstances, we are more than ever for the war. We 
are now, henceforth and forever, in favor of carrying on the war in dead 
earnest; we are opposed to all at home who oppose the war, and cry 
* peace, when there is no peace,' andean be no peace except at the expense 
of our nationality, of our honor and manhood; we admonish all such as 
counsel peace and oflfer their sympathies to our enemies, that they are 
making a damning record for themselves and their descendants for all 
time to come ; and we furthermore suggest most respectfully to all who feel 
competent to criticize the war and tell us how ' battles should be fought 
and victories won,' to shoulder the musket and come down to the front 
and give practical evidence of their ability in the science of arms and 
the duties of the soldier." — 2d Brigade, Indiana. 

" There will come a day when we shall return as citizens; and then will 
come a day of retribution to the wretches who have taken advantage of our 
absence to seize a power which does not belong to them, — since we have 
rights as citizens, although we are soldiers. Let the traitors tremble at 
the day of our return."— 109^/j N. Y. Vols. 



OF THE REBELLION. 303 

ing to the heavy boom of artillery that came rolling over the 
Potomac from a neighboring battle-field, mingled with the 
sharp clicks of a hundred hammers and chisels of honest me- 
chanics, who were unconcerned for the safety of the country, 
believing with the firmest faith in its strength and lastingness, 
and wielding strong muscles in the citizen work of gaining 
their bread by the sweat of their brows. 

Such faith and such works were characterizing at the same 
hour every field of labor, thought, and achievement through- 
out the free States, — all their workshops, all their arsenals, 
all their district school-houses, colleges, and higher seats of 
science and learning. From the lowest to the highest scenes 
of social life, the great heart, the clear brain, and the strong 
arms of all true Americans were earnestly directed to the 
duties before them, firm, hoping, cheerful, and brave. iS^ever 
did a nation before pass through any great civil war with so 
little shock to society, with so little disturbance to the every- 
day occupations, responsibilities, and prosperity of life. Civil 
wars have generally been unmitigated curses while they 
lasted, however beneficent may have been their results. With 
us all this is changed. We are marching through a conflict 
grand beyond historic parallel, but we are marching in the 
sunshine. All the light beams on us. The passing shadows 
may sometimes fall on our pathway, but the dark side is 
always turned on our enemies. The Red Sea of blood will 
soon be passed. And the Republic is the People. The 
People of the country trust the Republic. 



THE end. 



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